The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee just revealed that the CEO of Trump’s data firm “appears” to have lied to congress in sworn testimony – a clear federal crime.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former federal prosecutor, laid out his case today against Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who was infamously caught explaining his company’s kompromat operations using Ukrainian women to “honeypot” or entrap politicians in a hidden camera investigation.
It only took Rep. Schiff one single tweet to explain how the highly anticipated testimony from data scientist turned whistleblower Chris Wylie this week shows that Nix’s comments to the House Intel Committee included multiple lies about Cambridge Analytica’s use of stolen Facebook data for the Trump campaign.
3.) In light of the testimony of Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie in our investigation this week, as well as statements from Facebook, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix certainly appears to have given false testimony under oath. Read it here: pic.twitter.com/Rud0Aj6XMe
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) April 27, 2018
The above transcript is from an interview Nix gave to the House Intel panel last October – shortly after they launched an investigation into Cambridge Analytica – and just before confirmed emails emerged between him and London-based Wikileaks about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Cambridge Analytica is a Big Data company that hedge fund billionaire and Republican mega donor Robert Mercer underwrites to the tune of millions of dollars. One-time Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon managed the firm for a time, sat on the board of directors, and even secured a minority ownership stake for himself.
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The company bills itself as a legitimate number crunching outfit offering voter analysis and social media marketing strategies to candidates. But in reality it’s nothing but a “full-service propaganda machine,” according to whistleblower and former employee Christopher Wylie. He says the whole operation was used as an illegal, secret in-kind donation slush fund by Mercer.
Steve Bannon even tested pro-Putin messaging using Cambridge Analytica as far back as 2014, according to his recent testimony to Congress.
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NBC News reports:
“It was the only foreign issue, or foreign leader, I should say, being tested at the time I was there,” Wylie said. “I can’t explain why it was that they picked Vladimir Putin to talk about in focus groups or to do message testing or to do models on, and why that would be useful to Steve Bannon.”
Wylie said there was very little U.S.-based staff at Cambridge Analytica. The company, he said, was a “shell” company with most of the work done in London by its parent company, SCL.
Bannon spoke with the Financial Times in March of this year and took credit for co-founding and naming the psychological warfare company. He also disclosed his ownership stake. But he insisted that Trump’s data company didn’t use foreign workers illegally. (video embedded below)
Shortly after his speech, news emerged that Bannon and his work with Cambridge Analytica were subjects in special counsel Robert Mueller’s larger investigation in Russia’s operation to undermine the 2016 election – and the Trump campaign’s possible collusion in that endeavor.
Two weeks later, UK Channel 4’s undercover camera investigation of Cambridge Analytica revealed the company’s violation of American campaign finance laws.
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Channel 4’s reports and Carole Cadwalladr’s amazing multi-part investigative reports for major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic – including London’s Observer and Guardian, and the New York Times – the UK’s parliament has intensified its investigations into the election firm. Those efforts culminated in a dramatic raid of Cambridge Analytica’s posh offices by British authorities.
The Attorney General of Massachusetts also launched an investigation after Cadwalladr’s stories came out, which other state AGs have since joined, and Trump’s new National Security Advisor John Bolton was revealed to have deep links to the company and the Mercer family as well.
Eventually, the CEO of Facebook testified to Congress about the stolen data that London-based Cambridge Analytica used to make psychographic profiles of nearly every American voter. They then weaponized that data and deployed it for the Trump Campaign.
Special Counsel Mueller has a lot on his plate, but it appears more and more that his investigation into Cambridge Analytica will yield abundant evidence of illegal activity by the Trump Campaign.
Watch Steve Bannon talk about Cambridge Analytica in this video:
