In case anyone missed this report by Rachel Maddow and her team.
Here is a full transcript (cut & pasted) of the report exposing the connections that were denied by the parties involved.
Rachel Maddow’s report:
There is a lot – a
lot of interesting news that has been breaking over the course of the day
today, a lot of gobsmacking stuff.
The most gobsmacking news in American politics today, though, I think
actually happened five time zones away in the U.K. In the U.K. today, we
finally got settled one of the core questions at the heart of the big
existential national security foreign influence scandal that looms over
everything else in this presidency.
Everybody on what I like to think of as earth 1, the entire U.S.
intelligence community, the bipartisan membership of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, even occasionally the Trump administration itself,
everybody on earth 1 admits now that Russia, Russian government, Russian
military, Russian intelligence interfered in the U.S. presidential election
in 2016 to try to help Donald Trump win that election.
To put a finer point on it, we got that indictment in February filed
against 13 Russian individuals and three Russian corporate entities.
Indictment filed in federal court in Washington that spelled out the
findings of Robert Mueller’s office, the special counsel’s office on how
exactly Russia conducted that operation, at least the part where they
conducted their own influence operation from outside the United States
targeting the American public to try to skew U.S. public opinion in ways
that would benefit Trump during the election. We’ve got that spelled out
in that indictment.
What we don’t have any definitive public findings on thus far is the
question of whether or not the Russian government also found ways to
directly assist the Trump campaign as an entity rather than just targeting
U.S. public opinion. I mean, we do have evidence about that, but we don’t
have definitive public findings of the kind you might see in an indictment.
We do know, though, that there were lots of contacts between the Trump
campaign, the Trump Organization and the Trump family with Russians while
Trump was running for president. We know those contacts were kept secret
at the time. We know those contacts were frequently the subject of lies
and misrepresentations once they were discovered.
Was the Trump campaign in on this Russian influence operation to try to
affect the campaign? I mean, well, we know they were notified of Russia’s
efforts to help Trump win the election. That was part of setting up that
Trump Tower meeting in the summer of 2016. This is part of the Russian
government’s efforts to help the Trump campaign, right?
Did the Trump campaign become a knowing participant in that Russian
influence operation to change the outcome of our election? Did it become a
joint operation between Russia and the Trump campaign? Well, there are
some blunt connections, right? Russia, of course, we now know stole
documents from the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. They then
organized and distributed those documents back into the United States in
ways that were designed to inflict maximum damage on Hillary Clinton’s
campaign.
Even after widespread public reporting and discussion about the fact that
that hacking operation had been conducted by the Russians, candidate Trump
himself openly encouraged people to seek out those documents. He
encouraged Russia to steal and leak more of those documents.
Then late last year, we learned about another operational link between that
Russian influence effort and the Trump campaign when it was reported that
Cambridge Analytica, this data firm founded by Trump’s biggest donor Robert
Mercer headed up by his campaign chief Steve Bannon, this data firm that
the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to, late last year we learned
that that firm had reached out to one of the entities that was distributing
the stolen Russian documents.
Cambridge Analytica offered their services, offered their help to help
index and publicize these stolen materials. And that kind of just sounds
like details, right? Sounds like, oh, one more step down this long path
we’ve been walking since Trump was elected, as we’ve been trying to figure
out what exactly happened there in that election and what exactly Russia
did. It just sounds like one more detail.
But step back from it for a second. I mean, what that means when we found
out that Cambridge Analytica reached out to WikiLeaks and said hey, can we
help? What that means is, we’ve got a Russian intelligence operation under
way to illegally influence the U.S. election in Trump’s favor, and we’ve
got the data firm paid by the Trump campaign offering operational help to
that effort.
So, that was – that was a big deal when we got that revelation last year,
that Cambridge Analytica offered to help WikiLeaks index and distribute the
stolen Russian documents. That’s a big deal. That shows somebody working
for the Trump campaign trying to help the Russians in their influence
operation.
Well, today, “The Guardian” newspaper in Britain reports that those
contacts were more extensive, and it went on for longer than previously
known. “The Guardian” reporting today that a senior executive at Cambridge
Analytica met with Julian Assange from WikiLeaks, which is the entity that
distributed the documents that Russia had stolen. She met with him in
February of last year at the embassy in London where he’s been holed up,
trying to fight extradition, and “The Guardian” reports that in addition to
that meeting, she’s total numerous people that she also surreptitiously
arranged payments to WikiLeaks. She arranged cryptocurrency payments to
WikiLeaks in addition to this newly reported meeting at which she says they
discussed the U.S. election.
So, again, it’s easy to just sort of, you know, see the trees instead of
the forest here, right? It’s easy to sort of follow each little detail,
new report that’s from each day.
But step back for a second. Russian intelligence steals Democratic documents, gives them to WikiLeaks to distribute in ways that will inflict the most damage on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The data firm working for the Trump campaign offers to help with
that work, and then holds at least one in-person meeting with WikiLeaks and
then secretly funnels them money.
What is the definition of collusion anyway? Anyway, that was this morning
in “The Guardian” newspaper. Then this afternoon in a parliamentary
hearing room, we just got another now big piece of what the Trump campaign
did. Earlier this year in March, you might remember there was a whole
flurry of revelations about this data firm Cambridge Analytica. There was
an undercover sting set up by Channel 4 in Britain in which top executives
from Cambridge Analytica were caught on tape saying all sorts of
incriminating things.
We also got the dramatic emergence of a whistle-blower who had previously
been the research director for that firm. He appears to have taken a whole
bunch of documents from the firm with him when he left. And in March he
started talking to the press and sharing documents with the press about
what exactly that firm did, how it was built and how it ran its business.
The revelation from him that caused the biggest waves in this country and
around the world, including at least temporarily knocking tens of billions
of dollars off the valuation of Facebook was when he spilled out how this
data firm, Cambridge Analytica, obtained personal information, detailed
personal private information on tens of millions of Americans without their
permission. The data on which that firm’s work was based it turns out had
basically been stolen off of Facebook.
According to the former research director for Cambridge Analytica, what the
firm was based on was very, very detailed Facebook data from 87 million
Americans that was all stolen without their consent. It was stolen by
means of a program that was invented and deployed for the purpose of
stealing people’s data. That program was created for that purpose by an
academic, by a professor, who has a joint appointment at a British
university and also at a Russian university. He is a professional who has
received Russian government grants for his work.
So, this data firm that the Trump campaign paid millions of dollars to for
the 2016 election, which their biggest donor Robert Mercer was involved in
setting up, which Steve Bannon was involved in running, their sales pitch
overall is that they can micro-target very, very specific political
messages to you based on incredibly detailed information they’ve got about
you as an individual that’s based on basically everything you’ve every done
online. Anything you’ve said you liked, anything you bought, anything you
clicked on, anything you said online, your whole online history. They can
get an incredibly nuanced, detailed profile of you as an individual, your
personality, and what would affect you if it was specifically targeted to
you as a political message at a specific time to get you to do a specific
thing. That’s been their pitch.
Well, in March, this whistle-blower from that firm claimed that the way
Cambridge Analytica got all that data on 90 million Americans was by
stealing it, stealing it using a vehicle created for that purpose, created
to steal that data. A vehicle created for Cambridge Analytica by this
professor who is partly funded by the Russian government. The head of
Cambridge Analytica testified before the British parliament earlier this
year and he denied over and over again what this whistleblower had said.
He denied this firm had ever received that data, denied his firm had ever
used that kind of data for their work.
Today, in a parliamentary hearing room in Britain, he admitted actually he
had been mistaken in his earlier testimony, and actually, yeah, that was
the data that they used.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The chairman asked you they’ve not supplied you with
data information. Your answer, again, was no, and the chair then asked
again, your data set’s not based with information you’ve received from
them? Again you said no. The chair, at all? And your final response was,
at all.
So since then, we’ve had some rather conflicting evidence from Dr. Kogan
himself, from Christopher Wiley about what data was supplied and used.
Indeed, Mr. Wiley described that data obtained via the Kogan act from
Facebook is the foundation set of the company, which may have collected
data on up to 87 million users, and also clearly there has been action by
Facebook following these revelations or allegations.
Do you want to clarify or amend now the evidence that you gave in February
with respect to data supplied by GSR and Dr. Kogan?
ALEXANDER NIX, FORMER CEO, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA: Thank you. I’m grateful
for that opportunity. Look, clearly I accept that some of my answers could
have been clearer, but e I assure you that I did not intend to mislead you.
Of course the answer to this question should have been yes. There was
certainly no intention to mislead the committee. That was my
understanding, and it was a genuine misunderstanding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That’s the head of the data firm that the Trump campaign used in
the 2016 elections now admitting what he had previously denied about where they got their data that they used for their political operations,
including their most famous victory.
And there is a lot of drama in this story, right, around this firm and
these characters in their own right. Cambridge Analytica as a firm has now
technically been shut down. “The Financial Times” reported on its front
page this morning that as soon as reporters started asking around earlier
this year about this data story, about them building their firm based on
all this stolen data, that guy who you just saw testifying there, the CEO
of Cambridge Analytica, according to “The Financial Times” immediately
withdrew $8 million from the company.
So, Alexander Nix, the CEO is now under considerable pressure on that part
apart from investors who were helping the country essentially shut down as
Cambridge Analytica so it could reopen as some new rebranded entity. They
appear to be a little bit miffed that $8 million they thought was in the
company’s coffers had instead been taken home in Alexander Nix’s pockets.
That led to some exceedingly awkward questions for Mr. Nix today about the
money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you take $8 million out?
NIX: Well, the answer to your question is that –
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes or no.
NIX: I’m not answering your question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Can you use that in any circumstance?
So, this guy from Cambridge Analytica is under considerable pressure. The
FBI special counsel’s office is reportedly investigating Cambridge
Analytica as part of this fundamental investigation into ties between the
Trump campaign and that Russian influence operation.
In the U.K., that firm is subject to significant legal inquiries now and
also a big parliamentary investigation which is part of what we saw today
in that hearing. That’s being driven in considerable part by concerns over
whether Cambridge Analytica might have somehow illegally skewed the Brexit
vote on whether or not Britain would leave the European Union.
But for all the local drama around this firm and all the sort of lurid and
elaborate trouble they’ve gotten themselves into since their role in the
Trump election campaign, I mean, don’t lose sight of the importance of this
admission today that we just got in this hearing in parliament in Britain.
I mean, we in this country are dealing with this existential question as to
– you know, with everything else going on in the Trump administration,
everything else going on in the world, we are still every day dealing with
this question of whether or not our president was chosen not just because
of a foreign intelligence operation. We’re grappling with this existential
question as to whether his campaign was part of that foreign intelligence
operation.
And now, there is this admission today that in fact the Trump campaign’s
data firm in the election run by his top donor Robert Mercer, led by his
campaign chief Steve Bannon, that data firm was a foreign firm using
foreign workers micro-targeting U.S. voters in swing states right up
through election day, using an incredibly potent personalized detailed data
set that was stolen for them by a Russian researcher paid for by the
Russian government.
And I – and I know that sounds like international news. I know that
sounds like something about other countries, but that’s the problem, right?
Because it’s not supposed to be international news when you tell the story
of how you got the current American president.
(end of transcript)
— so this is more of a for-the-record cut & paste job of Rachel Maddow and her team connecting a few more dots with excellent sourcing and research