How did the Trump campaign manage to get so much in-depth information for their vaunted digital ground game in 2016? They used data from at least 50 million Americans, data that was inappropriately obtained—stolen. Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, the data firm owned by billionaire Robert Mercer, has stepped forward with explosive details on how the firm acquired the stolen data of a huge number of Americans. Robert Mercer also happens to a Trump mega-donor and owner of Breitbart News. Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, have donated tens of millions of dollars to conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation and plumping up the coffers of Republicans running for office nationwide. The Mercers essentially single-handedly kept Trump’s campaign afloat when others were running away. They also lent the Donald Trump campaign two key staff members. From USA Today:
The intensely private Mercers have emerged as big power brokers in Trump’s Washington. They financially backed Trump’s campaign when many establishment donors steered clear of the brash real estate magnate.
Rebekah Mercer helped persuade Trump to hire two key strategists on his campaign — pollster Kellyanne Conway, who served as campaign manager, and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, who served as the campaign's CEO. Both sit in Trump’s inner circle at the White House. Rebekah Mercer served on the executive committee of Trump’s transition team, alongside three of his adult children, Bannon and other key advisers, including Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
With Bannon came Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that got its start with $15 million from the Mercers and a jackpot of stolen Facebook data:
The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work.
So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.
It is important to understand how this stolen data was used. Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, blew the lid off this story when he came forward over the weekend to expose how this data was stolen and later how it was likely weaponized by Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica and eventually the Trump campaign. This is really important. Please take a few minutes to watch this interview and share widely. They didn’t just use this data on Facebook, they wickedly used it across all platforms to alter perceptions, using fake news with real consequences for millions of Americans. And they shared all of the data with a Russian oil company with known Putin and Russian intelligence connections. They used psychologists to weaponize this data with pinpoint accuracy, manipulating public opinion. They corrupted our democracy with this data.
Robert Mercer, Rebekah Mercer, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway corrupted our democracy and should be investigated with every resource available, especially if they knowingly handed over all of our private information to the Russians.