The White House on Tuesday refused to acknowledge that the number of people affected by the Office of Personnel Management data breach might be as high as 18 million, even after FBI Director James Comey apparently released that figure to senators last week.
Instead, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he was officially sticking with the 4.2 million figure that OPM has released.
“What we have tried to do at each stage is to allow what is known about the investigation of the intrusion drive what information is being made public,” Earnest said on Tuesday. “And we have, at many turns, sort of cautioned against being able to release specific pieces of information because there are certain details that were emerging from the investigation.”
Earnest added that he was among the victims of the hack.
OPM itself refused to revise its estimate beyond the official 4.2 million figure earlier in the day. Speaking before a Senate Appropriations panel Tuesday morning, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta said that the on-going investigation prevents her from revising the original 4.2 million estimate.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” she said. “We’ll continue that investigation with our partners. So at this point, we know that it’s a little over 4 million.”
Making that number public was “consistent with what we think is our obligation to make sure we’re communicating with those individuals” whose information is now in the hands of hackers, Earnest said.
