Ward’s rich connection to data firm

EJ Montini Columnist Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK

Republican Kelli Ward, who desperately wants Sen. Jeff Flake’s senate seat, is in deep to the same sleazy data mining firm that accessed the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users and, according to a British report, was caught on tape outlining how it could nail politicians by way of bribes and Ukrainian sex workers.

And you thought Ward’s kookiest association had to do with chemtrails.

This same firm, Cambridge Analytica, was used by Donald Trump’s campaign to “harvest” (as they say) the information from unwitting Facebook users. Fifty million.

Maybe you. Maybe me. Among Arizona politicians, it turns out that the candidate mostly likely to follow in the muddy footsteps of the Trump campaign is Ward.

According to Open Secrets, the political action committee supporting Ward, KelliPAC, paid Cambridge Analytica $450,000 in August.

This firm apparently was funded by big-time Republican donor Robert Mercer and onetime White House insider and Trump pal Stephen Bannon.

In the British news report, an executive for Cambridge Analytica says one way they might get dirt on a politician is to “send some girls around to the candidate’s house.” He said Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful” and that he finds it “works very well.” Nice.

Not only did the billionaire Mercer and pal Bannon dream up this company but Mercer also is responsible, in large part, for Kelli Ward.

According to a report on the KelliPAC website, Mercer donated $300,000 to the PAC this time around. It added that “Mercer and his wife Diana donated $700,000 to this PAC in 2016 when Ward faced off against another Trump critic Sen. John McCain.”

You’ll recall how Ward called McCain “weak” and “old.” And how she said he should retire from the Senate (so she could replace him).

When McCain rebuked Trump for insulting the parents of the late Capt. Humayun Khan, Ward doubled down on the president’s crude remarks.

She said, “The Khan controversy is a cynical political stunt cooked up by the Clinton Establishment, and, sadly, John McCain has fallen right into it.”

She cozied up to Bannon, one of those who funded Cambridge Analytica, then distanced herself when he was banished from the White House. Loyalty much?

According to her campaign website, Ward believes in “traditional principles and values.” She believes that “our faith in and love of God sits at the heart of many of the blessings.”

How does that sit with taking a million dollars from a man backing a firm that accessed the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users and boasts of using bribes and Ukrainian sex workers to get politicians?

Shouldn’t a person of faith who believes in “traditional principles and values” give that money back?