Democratic presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders today apologised to his rival Hillary Clinton for inadvertently breaching into her election database to access information about her voters.
"Yes, I apologise," Sanders said replying to a question after he acknowledged that his presidential election campaign "by mistake" intruded into the election data base of Clinton. He said the individual responsible for this has been fired.
Both Sanders,74, and Clinton, 68, are seeking be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee for the 2016 elections.
The public apology by Sanders to Clinton is expected to bring an end to the bitter fight that had erupted between the two campaigns yesterday after the Democratic Party suspended his campaign access to its data following the security breach.
A day earlier, Sanders had sued his own Democratic party for blocking his campaign from accessing its digital database considered essential to run his electioneering.
He had alleged his campaign is losing USD 600,000 in donations each day as it cannot access the party's data.
It alleged that the Sander's campaign accessed and intruded into the data of Clinton's campaign.
"Not only do I apologise to Secretary Clinton - and I hope we can work together on an independent investigation from day one - I want to apologise to my supporters. This is not the type of campaign that we run," Sanders said.
"If I find anybody else involved in this, they will also be fired," said the Senator from Vermont.
Clinton quickly accepted the apology and said she very much appreciate Sander's comment.
"It really is important that we go forward on this. I know that you now have your data back, and that there has been an agreement for an independent inquiry into what did happen," she said.
"Obviously, we were distressed when we learned of it, because we have worked very hard - I said in the beginning of this campaign, we want to reach as many voters as possible, and we have tens of thousands of volunteers doing that, and entering data all the time to keep up with what people are telling us," Clinton said.
"We have resolved your data, we have agreed on an independent inquiry, we should move on. Because I don't think the American people are all that interested in this," she said.
"I think they're more interested in what we have to say about all the big issues facing us," Clinton said.
