UK Channel 4 has released the third part of their undercover investigation of Cambridge Analytica, and what it shows absolutely destroys the narrative that has been sold by the Trump campaign, by CA, and by congressional Republicans.
Despite desperate attempts from both sides to downplay CA’s role in the Trump campaign, Cambridge CEO Alexander Nix left no doubt about the scope of the company’s work when he thought the cameras weren’t watching.
“We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.”
The company bragged about this ability to create stories that spread through the internet while leaving no fingerprints.
“We just put information into the bloodstream to the internet and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again over time to watch it take shape. And so this stuff infiltrates the online community and expands but with no branding – so it’s unattributable, untrackable.”
And Nix leaves absolutely no doubt that, as far as he is concerned, it was Cambridge Analytica’s weaponized disinformation tools that put Trump over the top—while deceiving Americans by the millions by feeding them false stories from disguised sources.
Way too little. Way too late.
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In addition to bragging about their ability to make people believe any lie, and their ability to spread those lies in ways that make them look like actual news, Cambridge Analytica’s leaders were also anxious to share how they violated US campaign funding laws by coordinating between the Trump campaign and supposedly independent PACs.
... Mr Turnbull described how the company created the “Defeat Crooked Hilary” brand of attack ads, that were funded by the Make America Number 1 super-PAC and watched more than 30 million times during the campaign.
One feature of the Cambridge interview that might particularly interest Robert Mueller—a claim that they’re using a self-destructing email system that allows them to pass messages that leave no record behind.
In one exchange Alexander Nix revealed the company used a secret self-destructing email system that leaves no trace. He said: “No-one knows we have it, and secondly we set our… emails with a self-destruct timer… So you send them and after they’ve been read, two hours later, they disappear. There’s no evidence, there’s no paper trail, there’s nothing.”
Nix was also happy to confirm reports that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee really had no interest in finding any sort of problem.
Mr Nix also belittled representatives on the House Intelligence Committee to whom he gave evidence in 2017. He claims Republican members asked just three questions. “After five minutes – done.”
The report reveals that Cambridge Analytica was behind everything on the Trump campaign, from the research to the ad campaigns.
It shows that Cambridge Analytica was actively planting false stories and using false fronts to disguise the source of information.
It confirms what Republican Representative Mike Conaway already let slip—that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee actively avoided finding any issues.
