Preparing for the worst. Photo: PETE MAROVICH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Bernie Sanders is preparing for the coming onslaught of attacks by hiring someone who knows the material best. The Vermont senator’s campaign is bringing on a veteran of Hillary Clinton’s research department who helped pull together the former secretary of State’s opposition-research book on Sanders in 2016, according to Democrats familiar with the decision.

Tyson Brody, Clinton’s deputy research director during the last election cycle, will direct Sanders’s research operation, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir confirmed to Intelligencer on Wednesday. Brody, who worked on Clinton’s self-research as well as the Sanders oppo files last cycle, is the first Democrat to go from Clinton’s camp to Sanders’s 2020 campaign after their bitter primary fight.

“This campaign will comport itself according to the values of Senator Sanders, which means we will not engage in mudslinging or character assassination. That said, one of the reasons we hired Tyson is to prepare this campaign for whatever false accusations and allegations are leveled against us,” Shakir said in a statement. “Most importantly, Tyson’s work on this campaign will help us educate voters about the issues, policies and stances that the Senator has taken over the course of a lifetime fighting for working people.”

While Clinton never went negative on Sanders in paid advertising, her team did compile a full opposition-research book on him. When New York asked Sanders last year about how he’d prepare for negative attacks ahead of 2020, he brushed the idea aside. “Look, you don’t even need [opposition research],” he said. “If I were a choirboy, it doesn’t matter, because they lie all the time.”