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Abigail Spanberger, Democratic candidate for the 7th congressional district of Virginia, speaks during the Women’s Summit in Herndon, Va., on Saturday June 23, 2018.
The United States Postal Service said Thursday that “human error” led to it releasing a former CIA operative and Democratic House candidate’s highly sensitive security clearance form.
In a statement to CNBC, Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said the agency “deeply regrets our mistake in inappropriately releasing” Abigail Spanberger’s official personnel file, which contains sensitive personal information. The Postal Service apologized to Spanberger, a candidate running in the highly competitive Virginia 7th District House race, and said it would ask for her information to be returned.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a House GOP-linked super PAC, used the file for political attacks against Spanberger. America Rising PAC, a pro-GOP research group, asked for Spanberger’s personnel file under a Freedom of Information Act request and received it legally.
Partenheimer said the Postal Service would change its process for handling document requests in the future.
“We take full responsibility for this unfortunate error, and we have taken immediate steps to ensure this will not happen again. The Postal Service has addressed the issue by providing clear instructions and guidance to our employees tasked with the responsibility for handling these requests, and we will follow up with additional training,” he said.
“The Postal Service also intends to change our process for handling requests for OPF information to provide further protection against its inadvertent release, and to ensure that such requests are properly handled,” Partenheimer added.
A Congressional Leadership Fund spokesman and America Rising did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests to comment on whether they would return Spanberger’s personal information.
Spanberger had previously accused the pro-GOP groups of illegally obtaining her information.
On Tuesday, CLF criticized Spanberger over her time working as a substitute teacher at an Islamic school in Northern Virginia. The CIA had conditionally given her a job at that time as it looked into her background, and she spent two years at the Postal Inspection Service before the spy agency officially brought her on, according to The New York Times. Spanberger spent eight years as an intelligence officer.
“If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny that they are somehow trying to give me terrorist ties,” she said, according to the newspaper. “I put myself at risk to thwart the terrorist threat.”
Spanberger is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Dave Brat in a race that top forecasters consider highly competitive.
