Jeb Bush: OPM hack just ‘as bad’ as Snowden, Manning leaks

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush believes the crippling data breach that has rattled the government is as damaging to national security as the document leaks by former government contractor Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

It’s believed that Chinese hackers pierced the Office of Personnel Management to build a comprehensive database on government officials. The sensitive data accessed could be used to imitate officials, stage future cyberattacks or even recruit informants or blackmail administrators.

{mosads}“If it’s true the Chinese have this stuff, this is as bad as Snowden, or as bad as Bradley Manning,” Bush said in an interview that aired Friday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, referring to Manning’s name before she underwent gender therapy.

Bush, the former Florida governor, is one of a number of Republican White House hopefuls using the OPM breaches to bash the Obama administration on a number of fronts.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have both maintained the hack was only possible because of Obama’s weak handling of China.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) has blasted the president for not hacking back at Beijing officials.

Bush joined them over the last week, posting an essay on Medium in which he said the incident was “emblematic” of the administration’s slow and ineffectual response to the obvious danger posed by foreign hackers.

He has since doubled down in follow-up interviews, calling for the firing of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta.

“She should have never been hired,” he said Friday. “As I understand it, she was the political director of the Obama reelection campaign. Just by definition that’s pretty much a disqualifier in my mind.”

“It sends a pretty powerful signal that the head of the HR department of the fed gov was a political hack,” he added. “That was wrong.”

Archuleta has faced a gauntlet of Congressional panels over the past two weeks, fending off criticism of her slow reaction to inspector general reports that the agency’s system was riddled with security flaws.

Bush was not impressed by her testimony.

“She refuses to acknowledge any accountability, any responsibility,” he said. “This is a growing, endemic problem in the Obama administration. No one accepts responsibility.”

“This is a huge security problem for our country,” he added.