"new york times" breaking the news late last night that this candidate, abigail span berger, a democratic congressional candidate in virginia, she's the candidate democrats have nominated to try to unseat republican congressman dave bratt in virginia, abigail apparently had her full unredacted security clearance application not just released by the trump administration without her permission which is illegal but the trump administration apparently released it to a republican opposition research effort. which then did immediately start using that security clearance application against her in her congressional campaign. applications for security clearance are incredibly intrusive and incredibly personal on purpose. they are designed to ferret out anything that a foreign adversary might try to use to blackmail you to get you to hand over information that you'll have access to because of your clearance. applications are deep deep background collection and they're specifically looking for anything that anybody might try to use against you. so it's medical information, it's relationship informa

we first learned this candidate abigail span berger's security application had been obtained by a republican opposition research group and by paul ryan's pac thanks to this is "new york times" article which broke late tuesday night. abigail was a cia case officer working on counter-terrorism issues. before that career, she worked as a federal agent on the law enforcement side of the u.s. postal service. what has been clear from the beginning of this scandal, cynic it first broke is that abigail's security application really has been circulated by this paul ryan super pac and they have been using it against her in her congressional campaign despite the fact it's not legal for them to have it. what has not been clear till today is how they got it in the first place. candidate abigail spanberger wrote to the group a couple of days ago and put it in blunt terms. quote, it has come to my leadership that the congressional leadership fund this pac has somehow retained a full unredacted copy and has disseminated it for unknown purposes. i'm not aware of any legal way that your group could have this