WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his allies are well-practiced in the art of distancing themselves from their own campaign officials and activities once they run into controversy.
The swiftly intensifying scandal involving Cambridge Analytica is no different.
With the data analytics firm battling headlines over a breach of Facebook users’ private data as part of their work to elect Trump and over its now-suspended CEO’s secret pitch of honey traps to influence elections around the world, the Trump team is once again deploying a hardly-knew-‘em defense.
A Trump campaign official — who did not wish to be named — told POLITICO on Tuesday that the 2020 campaign has no existing contracts with Cambridge Analytica and no plans to contract with the firm going forward. And, the official added, the data analytics firm only “provided limited staffing” during the 2016 campaign, and the Trump campaign did not use the firm’s data.
The Trump campaign was not always so eager to distance itself from Cambridge Analytica, especially in the wake of the surprise 2016 win.
“We found that Facebook and digital targeting were the most effective ways to reach the audiences,” Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a top campaign aide, told Forbes after the election during an interview in which he boasted about the campaign’s digital strategy. “After the primary, we started ramping up because we knew that doing a national campaign is different than doing a primary campaign. That was when we formalized the system because we had to ramp up for digital fundraising. We brought in Cambridge Analytica.”
And to hear Alexander Nix, the suspended CEO, tell it, Cambridge is practically the reason Trump won.
“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,” Nix told an undercover reporter with the U.K.’s Channel 4 in video released late Tuesday. He also said he had met with Trump “many times.”
The revisionist take is a familiar playbook for the Trump camp.
Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, now facing charges for money laundering? He was only involved with the campaign for “a very short period of time,” in Trump’s telling. Former foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about Russia contacts? Nothing but a “coffee boy,” per one campaign adviser.
But like those other examples, the Trump campaign’s ties to Cambridge Analytica are well documented.
Election records show the Trump campaign paid the firm $5.9 million, and the firm’s extensive ties to Trump have been the subject of numerous media reports during and after the campaign.
Cambridge Analytica has been primarily funded by Robert Mercer who, along with his daughter Rebekah Mercer, was a major backer of Trump’s electoral efforts. Trump’s former White House chief strategist and campaign CEO, Steve Bannon, had served as vice president at the firm. And Kushner, along with 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, who led the campaign’s digital operations in 2016, were reportedly involved in the decision to retain Cambridge Analytica.
The firm was so central to Trump’s electoral efforts that special counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling, has asked the firm to turn over the emails of any employees who worked on the Trump campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Parscale, for his part, has tried to downplay Cambridge’s role, instead saying during an October 2017 interview with “60 Minutes” that the campaign had its own set of tricks that created a winning strategy.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday also tried to point to some past comments, directing POLITICO to an October statement, in which campaign executive director Michael Glassner said Trump chose after securing the nomination to “partner with the Republican National Committee on data analytics” and “relied on them as our main source for data analytics.”
“Any claims that voter data from any other source played a key role in the victory are false,” the statement said.
But the effort to tamp down the Cambridge Analytica scandal will likely become increasingly difficult as lawmakers seize on the revelations.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, on Tuesday cited the scandal as he freshly accused Republicans on the panel for prematurely wrapping up its investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia-driven election meddling.
“Glad to see Cambridge Analytica whistleblower is willing to testify,” Schiff tweeted, referencing news that former Cambridge employee Christopher Wylie was willing to speak with the panel’s Democrats. “Recent revelations about Erik Prince, Roger Stone and Cambridge Analytica illustrate how GOP decision to shut down their investigation abdicated their oversight responsibilities to country. But our work goes on.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she’d like Nix to testify and answer questions about potential Russia connections, which could lead to a public airing of close ties between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica.
The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
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