The largest payment to Cambridge Analytica — $5 million on Sept. 1, 2016 — was made about two weeks after Bannon was appointed the chief executive of the Trump campaign […]
Bannon, with the Mercers’ backing, served as vice president of the firm from June 2014 to August 2016, when he joined the Trump campaign.
Bannon was not only a vice president, his share of the company was worth millions of dollars.
But dropped by the Mercers like a useless string puppet, no job at Breitbart even, ?
So who is pulling strings at Fox these days, with talking points so similar to Bannon’s ?
Cambridge Analytica only one of many ?
“Remember when they were saying, during the campaign, that Donald
Trump is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds, but he is
spending much less money and not using social media as well as Crooked
Hillary’s large and highly sophisticated staff. Well, not saying that
anymore!” Trump wrote.
A request for an explanation from the White House was not returned.
Jeez, this bozo is just trying to get caught! This is almost an admission that there were other forces working for him, like Cambridge. Just like his public calls, on national TV, asking the Russians to hack Hillary, and publicly sucking up to Putin.
Way down deep in that twisted, perverted little brain of his, is there a sliver of honesty, or guilt that wants to expose itself; needs to confess? Just how viciously did the ruskies compromise him?
BTW: John Le Carre discussed Trump, kompromat, and Cambridge Analytica during his “Fresh Air” interview.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/28/572625559/novelist-john-le-carr-reflects-on-his-own-legacy-of-spying
Cambridge Analytica is another shiny object that will distract and lead to all kinds of useless speculation. Mercers have already moved on and started a new company called Emerdata:
Bannon has always been part of Trump’s inner circle and most likely will play a part his next campaign. I seriously doubt Bannon was dropped by the Mercers. I think he has just moved out of the limelight.
Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels are meaningless distractions. We did not care about Bill Clinton’s Monica affair and Trump supporters do not care about Trump’s past affairs.
It’s remarkable how quickly the narrative has coalesced into CA not really being any good at social media or analysis.
Parscale and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, emphasized using social media
Trump campaign’s first payment of $100,000 to the firm came in July 2016.
Cambridge became de-emphasized. Two of the former campaign officials said their tools were not useful,
The largest payment to Cambridge Analytica — $5 million on Sept. 1, 2016 —
The Russians may, (probably) have kompromat on DJT but I think their asset(s) are further down the chain, Kushner and the young Trumps all seem to be just the type, well educated, suave, and, (most importantly), entitled brats of corrupt fathers. Bannon would not bat an eye about getting help from whomever, he is mostly interested in disruption, but I think that would make him at best the Russians would approach through a false flag operation. The kids on the other hand would be willing to work directly hand in glove with the Russians for very little cash and promised loans because they all think they are, like, smart.
Why no mention of Russia here? The guy who ran the survey that began the collection of all of the Facebook data was Russian and worked both in the UK and at the University of St Petersburg, where he had Russian government contracts. Are we merely to accept his statement that there was no connection? Sounds a bit naive to me.
I’m beginning to suspect the whistle blower was encouraged to come forward after they covered tracks and sanitized things. After a few weeks of media scrutiny, there will be nothing found. I find it odd it took him this long to develop a conscience.
That’s possible, but:
CA has offices in multiple countries. That means everyone who is investigating has access to their network traffic
Nobody on the Trump campaign even KNEW Cambridge Analytica! They were basically the digital coffee boy!
This is a big development (along with the immunity deal granted to George Nader). It was plain to me after watching the Channel 4 segments and reading the lengthy Guardian piece that Cambridge Analytica was a conduit for violations of US election laws. Over the course of a lengthy timeline, dating back to 2013-14, Cambridge Analytica may have been involved in several key events which could create multiple, independent sets of violations of laws.
- Harvested FB data of US nationals led by Russian prof Alexsandr Kogan, possibly in violation of privacy rights. Used that data to create detailed voter profiles (2013-14).
- Allowed (negligently or with knowledge?) such data to be transferred to Russia, which the Russians then used as the data blueprint for the Internet Research Agency led campaign to target US voters. (2014)
- (Note: A similar thing might’ve happened with UK nationals and the Brexit vote, and that would more clearly violate data privacy laws applicable in the UK. The raid that UK authorities are conducting tonight against C.A. offices may reveal relevant information if they get to the servers).
- Nix knowingly provided the election interference campaign methodology to a Russian oil company that is a front for RU Intel. Now while it may not have been illegal for Nix to do so, I suspect that he had knowledge of Russia’s interest in election disruption and had a business relationship with them and therefore could be viewed as an accomplice to the types of crimes that Mueller identified in the Internet Research Agency indictment. (2014-15?)
- Hired by the Trump campaign to support the Kushner-Parscale digital operation. Used every method to organize messaging and coordinate it among the Trump campaign, RNC and outside groups. This is illegal. (2016)
- Embedded non-US nationals (w/o permanent residence) in the Trump campaign to provide services, and used other non-US resources to provide additional support. This is illegal.
- Made a specific request of Wikileaks for stolen DNC data. C.A. has a history of receiving and using such data against candidates/heads of states in other countries. In the US, this activity is illegal because it is a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act and other theft related crimes. Based on the timeline, C.A. may have been tipped off that Wikileaks had stolen DNC data before it was released and before it was known to the public. Who informed them? Again, I go back to the at least 3-4 year relationship with agents of the Russian government (2016).
In short, there were separate sets of actions by C.A. in the 2013-15 period and 2016 time frame which should be investigated. Steve Bannon was around for all of it as the effective boss of Alexander Nix in the 2013-15 period and his boss during the Trump campaign. It is unlikely that Bannon wasn’t aware of what C.A. was doing. It was rather foolish on his part.
Jared Kushner, Brad Parscale, Rick Gates and the RNC will all be under scrutiny as key managerial principals who watched what C.A. was doing and used it for their benefit.
This is a big deal. As I wrote earlier, the Internet Research Agency indictment told us what the Russians did. This story tells us how they got the data, and it also tells us how the campaigns were operationally coordinated to target Hillary Clinton from different angles. That’s what we call a conspiracy.
UPDATE: right on cue, the Guardian finds another C.A. whistleblower who exposes Cambridge Analytica’s connection to Brexit:
Cambridge Analytica is another shiny object that will distract and lead to all kinds of useless speculation.
Thank you for proving my point. I knew you’d come through.
Wow. You did your homework. Maybe Josh should hire you.
Wow, Khyber, another stellar writeup. Thank you so much for contributing things like this to the threads. You are a Hive Treasure for sure! 
Watch out or Josh Marshall will want to hire you! 
ETA: And to think, this is but ONE thread of the Mueller investigation! Wow…
Maybe he just enjoys rubbing it in our faces because he’s oh so sure that he’s gotten/getting away with it. That is, he’s pumping up his sadistic ego.
I mean, what good is it if it can’t be celebrated?
I’ll go for ‘Malignant Narcissism’ for $300, Alex.
Thanks for the breakdown. It really clarifies the culpability here.
From what Nix said to his prospective client/the investigative reporter, CA sounded like a dirty tricks organization akin to Nixon’s Plumbers: the business model was ratfucking.
From that point of view, it seems fair to assume that none of these other violations were the result of ignorance or oversight.