Trump campaign ‘broke rules’
New documents from a former Cambridge Analytica insider reveal what an election watchdog group claims was illegal coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and a billionaire- funded pro-Trump super political action committee (PAC).
The legal complaint touches on some of the same people involved in this year’s presidential race, and provides a detailed account alleging that Trump’s previous campaign worked around election rules to coordinate behind the scenes with the political action committee.
The now-defunct British data analytics firm violated election law by ignoring its own written firewall policy, blurring the lines between work created for Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Make America Number 1 super PAC, according to an updated complaint the non-partisan Campaign Legal Centre filed yesterday with the Federal Election Commission.
The complaint also alleges that Cambridge Analytica – which improperly acquired and used 87 million Facebook users’ profiles to predict their behaviour – had a shared project calendar for both entities, among other evidence.
The super PAC created a plethora of ‘‘crooked Hillary’’ memes that were circulated widely on social media. It was financed largely by conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, who also founded, owned and managed Cambridge Analytica.
Kellyanne Conway led an earlier incarnation of the PAC when it supported Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz, before she resigned to advise Trump’s 2016 campaign.
A super PAC may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, including from corporations and unions, to support candidates for federal office, but it is illegal for them to coordinate with political campaigns.
The complaint alleges that Cambridge Analytica used information it gained from working with Trump’s campaign to develop and target advertisements for the super PAC supporting his candidacy. One September 2016 email it cites is from a Cambridge senior vice-president announcing some of the PAC’s ads against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, which the Cambridge official says were produced by ‘‘ our production partner’’ Glittering Steel, in which the then-CEO of the Trump campaign, Steve Bannon, had a financial stake.
The cache of emails, presentations and slide decks was provided exclusively to The Associated Press by Cambridge Analytica’s first business development director, Brittany Kaiser. Last year, Kaiser published a book and starred in a film advocating for data security and regulation of social media.
Some officials, like Conway and former Cambridge vicepresident Bannon, went on to play senior roles in the Trump administration.
Cambridge dissolved after facing investigations for playing a key role in the 2014 breach of Facebook users’ personal data. The company denied that it used the data in Trump’s 2016 campaign, an assertion that former employees have disputed.
Mercer has largely stepped back from Trump’s campaign this year, although in February he donated US$355,200 to a Trump fundraising committee. In 2016, the family poured millions into pro-Trump groups.