Former Cambridge Analytica workers say firm sent foreigners to advise U.S. campaigns

[riversedge]

Source: washpost







By Craig Timberg and Tom Hamburger March 25 at 9:28 PM

LONDON — Cambridge Analytica assigned dozens of non-U.S. citizens to provide campaign strategy and messaging advice to ­Republican candidates in 2014, according to three former workers for the data firm, even as an attorney warned executives to abide by U.S. laws limiting foreign involvement in elections.

The assignments came amid efforts to present the newly created company as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients even though its parent, SCL Group, was based in London, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie.

The effort was designed to present the newly created company, whose parent, SCL Group, was based in London, as “an American brand” that would appeal to U.S. political clients, according to former Cambridge Analytica research director Christopher Wylie.

Wylie, who emerged this month as a whistleblower, provided The Washington Post with documents that describe a program across several U.S. states to win campaigns for Republicans using psychological profiling to reach voters with individually tailored messages. The documents include previously unreported details about the program, which was called “Project Ripon” for the Wisconsin town where the Republican Party was born in 1854.

U.S. election regulations say foreign nationals must not “directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process” of a political campaign, although they can play lesser roles.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-cambridge-analytica-workers-say-firm-sent-foreigners-to-advise-us-campaigns/2018/03/25/6a0d7d90-2fa2-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story.html?utm_term=.3f99211e7a82

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?uuid=3sKuiC7rEeiK1vvFAoT86A
Alexander Nix, then the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, speaks at the 2016 Concordia Summit in New York in September 2016. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

[certainot]

1. sam nunberg says he listened to 1000s of hours of talk radio in 2014 for the trump team

gabriel sherman 4/3/16 new york magazine

that was so foreigners could coordinate their strategies with american talk radio, which had been attacking dems for 30 years and hillary for 25

why would they just make shit up?

[Hekate]

2. KnR

[IronLionZion]

3. So this is why they accuse brown voters as being illegal immigrants

because the GOP was using foreign non-U.S. citizens to influence the election

[neohippie]

4. my posts were locked so adding here

Thom Tillis and the NCGOP Need to Get Their Stories Straight on Cambridge Analytica
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Maeve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum). If you believe this was done in error, please contact Maeve to appeal.

Source: Indy Week, Washington Post, NBC News

On Friday, NBC Newsand then last night, The Washington Postreported that, in 2014, the controversial firm Cambridge Analytica had dispatched foreign nationals to assist with Republican campaigns in Colorado, Oregon, and North Carolina, possibly running afoul of a federal law that prohibits foreign agents from directly or indirectly participat[ing] in the decision-making process of a political campaign.

The Post quotes former CA workers saying they worried the company was giving its foreign employees potentially inaccurate immigration documents to provide upon entering the United States, showing that they were not there to work when they had arrived for the purpose of advising campaigns. Providing false visa information was also be a crime.

According to NBC, one of the campaigns for which CAs foreign agents did work was Thom Tilliss. In 2014, Tillis narrowly defeated Senator Kay Hagan in one of the most expensive Senate battles in American history, relying in part on CA data to target Hagan for her absences from Senate Armed Services Committee hearings.

Read more: https://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2018/03/26/thom-tillis-and-the-ncgop-need-to-get-their-stories-straight-on-cambridge-analytica


Tillis also paid CA a $100,000 win bonus after his election.


Brian Murphy
@MurphinDC
Tillis paid $100,000 "win bonus" to Cambridge Analytica after 2014 election victory. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article206085334.html …

7:46 PM - Mar 20, 2018

Thom Tillis says data company's work for him was limited
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis said Cambridge Analytica hasn't worked for his campaign in more than three years. Post-election payments were a "win bonus."

newsobserver.com
1
See Brian Murphy's other Tweets
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Who's enforcing campaign fiance laws in this country?

We have seen stories about foreign influence in our elections almost daily

Here's are the Washington Post and NBC story links too

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/wylie-foreigners-worked-cambridge-analytica-nc-senate-campaign-n859526

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/former-cambridge-analytica-workers-say-firm-sent-foreigners-to-advise-us-campaigns/2018/03/25/6a0d7d90-2fa2-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story.html?utm_term.6e18da5e55f0

Also let's not forget "Carolina Rising" a group that seems to have violated election laws and it appears, they have never been held accountable for it's abuse

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/10/political-nonprofit-spent-nearly-100-percent-of-funds-to-elect-tillis-in-14/

Both of the agencies responsible for overseeing the political activities of 501(c)s, the FEC and the IRS, are either mired in partisan deadlock or have promised not to change the way they regulate the groups until after the 2016 elections.

Congress is another major factor. Any action by the IRS against these kinds of groups has in the past raised hackles there, and accusations that the agency is on a witch hunt.

The IRS has been bullied into inaction by Republicans in Congress, Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said. 501(c)(4) groups like Carolina Rising are likely violating federal law with full confidence that there will be no consequences or penalties for their actions.

The upshot: Use of single-candidate nonprofits is clearly on the rise. Most presidential hopefuls in the 2016 cycle have one either waiting on the sidelines or, as the Associated Press reported recently, already spending millions of dollars from unknown sources to support one candidate, just like Carolina Rising.


https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/opinion/a-new-low-in-campaign-finance.html

We need to get control over foreign and dark money influences in our elections

[poboy2]

5. r'd