THE DARK TRUTH ABOUT CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA’S TIES TO TRUMPWORLD
A partnership between an Israeli entrepreneur and the Mercer-backed analytics firm may connect two key threads in Robert Mueller’s investigation.
BY MARK REINSTEIN/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES.
Jared Kushner may have fallen off the White House radar of late, but just after Donald Trump’s surprise election win, he wasn’t shy about claiming his place in the spotlight. Boasting to Forbes about his instrumental role in steering his father-in-law’s campaign to victory, Kushner said, “We basically had to build a $400 million operation with 1,500 people operating in 50 states, in five months.” “We brought in Cambridge Analytica,” he explained, referring to the data-analytics company backed by G.O.P. megadonor Robert Mercer, which reportedly received $5.9 million from the Trump campaign between July 29 and December 12, 2016.
But the links between the shadowy data firm—which, along with its parent company, shut down and declared bankruptcy this month following a massive Facebook data-privacy scandal—and Trumpworld appear to run deeper than the relationship Kushner forged with the big-data company.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in mid-December 2016, Cambridge Analytica inked a business agreement with Psy-Group, an Israeli company that employed several former Israeli intelligence officials and aimed to shape public opinion through social media.
Sources told the Journal that the agreement “outlines a partnership whereby the two firms could cooperate on a case-by-case basis to provide intelligence and social-media services,” and was designed in part to help both companies win government contracts—a potentially lucrative avenue, now that their preferred candidate was in office.
A lawyer for Joel Zamel, the owner of Psy-Group, said in a statement that his client “had nothing to do with Cambridge Analytica,” and a person familiar with the agreement told the Journal it was signed “without Mr. Zamel’s involvement,” or even, perhaps, his awareness. Yet his firm, at least, has been tangentially tied to Cambridge Analytica.
In a video published by British broadcaster Channel 4, former Cambridge Analytica C.E.O. Alexander Nix is overheard explaining tactics his firm had employed, including using bribes and prostitutes to entrap political opponents.
“We use some British companies, we use some Israeli companies,” he said in the video, appearing to refer to Psy-Group. “From Israel. Very effective in intelligence gathering.” (Nix, who was fired from the firm in March, has since said he regretted his role in the video, and Cambridge Analytica has said it did not employ the methods he discussed.)
Nor is this the first time Zamel’s name has been mentioned in connection with the Trump campaign. Three months before the 2016 election, a second group convened at Trump Tower to meet with Donald Trump Jr. Those in attendance included George Nader, an emissary for crown princes from both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia; Blackwater founder Erik Prince; and Zamel.
Per The New York Times, Zamel talked up Psy-Group, claiming the company could give Trump “an edge” in his campaign—by that time, his firm had reportedly “drawn up a multi-million-dollar proposal for a social-media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.” (A lawyer for Zamel said he was not involved in the U.S. election.)
The meeting has reportedly drawn the attention of Robert Mueller, whose probe appears to have expanded to encompass any and all foreign influence in the Trump campaign, in addition to potential Russian influence.
It remains unclear whether Zamel’s proposal was ever executed, but after the election, Nader paid Zamel up to $2 million for reasons that are still murky. Zamel has met with Mueller’s team, though his lawyer told the Journal that his client is “not a target” of the special counsel’s investigation. His company’s partnership with Cambridge Analytica may raise more questions than it answers. But at the very least, it begins to illuminate how the Trump Campaign and Psy-Group fit together after that pivotal day at Trump Tower.
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