We have reached the point where some people will do anything to win an election. Inventing tales of foreign collusion, withholding information about a protest that got out of control, and releasing what were supposed to be ‘sealed’ records.

My earliest recollection of releasing ‘sealed’ records was the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.

In August of 2012, Townhall noted:

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader. But then the Chicago Tribune leaked the claim that Hull’s second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.

Those records were under seal, but as The New York Times noted: “The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had ‘worked aggressively behind the scenes’ to push the story.” Many people said Axelrod (David Axelrod) had “an even more significant role — that he leaked the initial story.”

Fast forward to today. On February 19th, Just the News reported:

In an unprecedented breach, the Air Force improperly released to a research firm tied to Democrats’ congressional campaign arm the confidential personnel files of eleven members of the military, including one involving a retired lieutenant colonel running for office as a Republican that detailed how she had been sexually assaulted in the Air Force, Congress has been told.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer are demanding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explain how he will prevent future breaches of military members’ private information while pressing to know if there will be criminal prosecutions.

…In January, Green received a letter from acting Compliance Division Chief William J. Alexander Jr. acknowledging that her records were released “without proper redaction.”

“We found that your information was released by the Air Force [Personnel] Center to a third-party (‘Due Diligence’), a private company specializing in public record research without your consent via a SF-180 request,” he wrote. 

Coincidentally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $100,000 to the Due Diligence Group since 2021 (source OpenSecrets.org). Until people actually go to jail for this foolishness, it will not stop.