FIRST ON FOX: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) appeared to go back on its 2019 hacked materials pledge by paying the firm behind the leaks of several GOP candidates’ military records during the 2022 campaign.
Back in 2018, the DCCC made its initial hacked materials pledge before doubling down in 2019 during the Mueller report drama and calling on their GOP foil, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC), to join them in their pledge.
“Today, in light of revelations in the Mueller Report, DCCC Chairwoman Bustos sent a letter challenging the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) to formally reject the use of hacked or stolen material for electoral gains,” the DCCC wrote in 2019.
“In reaffirming this commitment, first made in 2018 by then-Chairman Ben Ray Luján, the DCCC has asked the NRCC to sign a written pledge focused on cybersecurity and the need to prevent hostile foreign powers from interfering in American political campaigns,” the House Democrats’ campaign arm continued.
In their 2019 pledge, the DCCC vowed they “will never seek out stolen and/or hacked information for use in any operations” and they “will never use known stolen and/or hacked information, or promote or disseminate stolen and/or hacked materials to the press, regardless of the source and will report any receipt of, or offers to receive, stolen and/or hacked information to law enforcement.”
“We will not support any campaign or allied groups that use known stolen and/or hacked information, or promotes or disseminates stolen and/or hacked materials to the press, regardless of the source and will encourage all campaigns to report any receipt of, or offers to receive, stolen and/or hacked information to law enforcement,” the pledge reads.
Last week, it was reported that two additional Republican candidates had their military records improperly released during the 2022 midterm elections by Due Diligence, a Democrat-aligned research firm that the DCCC is still paying as of last week.
Due Diligence Group received more than $110,000 from the DCCC from January 2021 to December 2022, according to FEC records, although it is unknown if the campaign committee used or received these or any other materials from Due Diligence.
Fox News Digital asked the DCCC for comment on appearing to go back on its hacked materials pledge and if the House Democrat campaign arm was still paying Due Diligence.
The DCCC did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The NRCC’s national press secretary Will Reinert blasted the DCCC’s pledge in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“The DCCC’s pledge is the moral equivalence of Barry Bonds demanding baseball players disavow steroid use,” Reinert said. “It’s peak self-righteous indignation.”
The improperly released records led to the outing of former GOP candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green’s sexual assault in the military by POLITICO in October.
Politico’s Adam Wren recently wrote a profile on Green, the GOP candidate who faced Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., in the race to represent Indiana’s 1st Congressional District. In his report, Wren detailed Green’s private experience of sexual assault that occurred during her military service. The piece, published just weeks before the midterms, referenced documents that the publication said “were obtained by a public records request and provided to Politico by a person outside the Mrvan campaign.”
Green contended the documents were obtained “illegally” to smear her campaign.
In October after the leak, the DCCC vowed to not “politicize” Jennifer-Ruth Green’s sexual assault after Politico outed the GOP congressional candidate as a survivor of sexual violence.
“We would never use someone’s experience with sexual assault against them, and it’s ridiculous to think we would. Highly sensitive and personal matters like this should never be politicized,” a DCCC spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Republicans have called on the DCCC to come clean publicly on if it played a role in the leaking of the GOP candidates’ military records.
Fox News Digital’s Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Aubrie Spady contributed reporting.