Not if you want to get to the truth of the matter.A director of the controversial data company Cambridge Analytica, who appeared with Arron Banks at the launch of the Leave.EU campaign, has been subpoenaed by the US investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
A spokesman for Brittany Kaiser, former business development director for Cambridge Analytica – which collapsed after the Observer revealed details of its misuse of Facebook data – confirmed that she had been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, and was cooperating fully with his investigation.
He added that she was assisting other US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities and had voluntarily turned over documents and data.
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Damian Collins, chairman of parliament’s inquiry into fake news, said it was “no surprise” that Kaiser was under scrutiny by Mueller because “her work connected her to WikiLeaks, Cambridge Analytica and [its parent company] SCL, the Trump campaign, Leave.EU and Arron Banks”.
He said it was now vital Britain had its own inquiry into foreign interference: “We should not be leaving this to the Americans.”
Guardian
Ah yes, the Israeli connection. I imagine there will be several countries interested in the information in Mueller's eventual report - assuming there is one.In August, Sam Patten, a US political consultant who had worked for Cambridge Analytica on campaigns in the US and abroad, struck a plea deal with Mueller after admitting he had failed to register as a foreign agent for a Ukrainian oligarch.
He became a subject of the special counsel’s inquiry because of work done with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, in Ukraine. He had also set up a business with Konstantin Kilimnik, a key figure who Mueller has alleged has ties to Russian intelligence and who is facing charges of obstruction of justice. [Kaiser, however, is the first person connected directly to both the Brexit and Trump campaigns known to have been questioned by Mueller.
The news came to light in a new Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, which premiered at the Sundance film festival last month and is expected to be released later this spring. Film-makers followed Kaiser for months after she approached the Guardian, including moments after she received the subpoena. She claims the summons came after the Guardian revealed she had visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while still a Cambridge Analytica employee in February 2017, three months after the US election.
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In the film, Kaiser says that she has gone from being a cooperating witness to a subject of investigation because of her contact with Assange.
In October 2017, it was revealed that Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, had contacted Assange in August 2016 to try to obtain emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign – which indictments from Mueller’s team say were obtained by Russian military intelligence – to use in Donald Trump’s campaign.
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Patten and Kaiser were involved in a controversial election campaign in Nigeria in January 2015, which former Cambridge Analytica employees say had “unsettling” parallels to the US presidential election.
The Guardian revealed that the data firm had worked alongside a team of unidentified Israeli intelligence operatives on the campaign.
UPDATE 8/6:
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