Obama Campaign Tried to Stop Info Leaks in 2012

Former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina tried to stop a series of leaks about innovative election technology operations by launching an investigation during the 2012 presidential race that focused on emails from campaign staffers to the media, Politico reported Thursday.

According to the news publication, Messina told campaign workers they could face disciplinary action if it were discovered they had leaked confidential information about the campaign's digital voter targeting efforts known as Dashboard.

Apparently, Messina and other administration officials began combing through worker emails after The Guardian newspaper in London reported in May on the existence of the Dashboard program.

According to Politico, campaign worker Teddy Goff was punished as a result of the investigation and was asked to apologize to senior campaign staff for giving the information to Ed Pilkington, the Guardian reporter who covered the story.

Messina, however, told Politico that Goff "did not leak any confidential information," but he would not comment further on the matter.

The Guardian was just one of several publications that wrote last year about several Obama campaign digital operations aimed at compiling and mining a large database of potential voters. In addition to Dashbord, other digital efforts were dubbed Dreamcatcher and Narwhal.

Goff, who co-founded and is now working with two other Obama campaign staffers at Precision Strategies, a consulting firm for political media, refused to comment on the Politico story.

Politico noted, however, that New York Times Magazine reporter Mark Leibovich mentions in his new book on Washington, called "This Town," that one of the campaign's "celebrated computer whiz kids" was forced to apologize for leaking confidential information. But Liebovich does not provide a name.