Cambridge Analytica Execs Bragged Of Using Fake News, Sex To Sway Elections: Report
Disturbing undercover interviews with executives from U.K.-based political research firm Cambridge Analytica have revealed admissions of bribery, entrapment and the use of sex workers to sway political elections around the world, according to an investigative series airing Monday.
The results of a monthslong investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 News revealed Cambridge Analytica’s inner workings as told by Alexander Nix, the company’s chief executive, and Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, to a reporter posing as a client.
The interviews are part of Channel 4 News’ “Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks” investigation series.
The company’s chief data officer, Dr. Alex Tayler, is also listed as having attended two of the meetings with the Channel 4 reporter.
During another interview in January, Nix reportedly said that one method of finding dirt on a candidate was to essentially create it.
“We’ll have a wealthy developer come in, somebody posing as a wealthy developer,” he said. “They will offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land, for instance. We’ll have the whole thing recorded on cameras, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet.”
In another example, the CEO reportedly said the firm will “send some girls,” specifically Ukranian women, to a candidate’s house to seduce the individual, an act that Nix said “works very well.”
“I’m just giving you examples of what can be done and what, what has been done,” he told the reporter.
Other methods involved making the public believe inaccurate facts about a certain candidate.
“I mean, it sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they’re believed,” he said.
... These are things that don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they’re believed.”
“It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts,” Turnbull is reported as saying in November, “because actually it’s all about emotion, it’s all about emotion.”
Channel 4 noted that though Turnbull witnessed Nix’s comments on the use of sex workers, during a Dec. 19 interview, Turnbull said his company isn’t “in the business of entrapment” and “lying, making stuff up.”
“We wouldn’t send a pretty girl out to seduce a politician and then film them in their bedroom and then release the film. There are companies that do this, but to me, that crosses a line…” Turnbull is reported as saying.
A Cambridge Analytica spokesman, cited by Channel 4, denied reports that its firm and affiliates “use entrapment, bribes, or so-called ‘honey-traps’ for any purpose whatsoever ... ”
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost on Monday.
View Part 1 of Channel 4′s “Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks” series.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cambridge-analytica-under-cover-interviews_us_5aafebc3e4b0697dfe19352b
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell???????
= new reply since forum marked as read
I am very interested in what Ryan did in Estonia. Pence also visited there. I find this curious. Is he one of the politicians CA targeted?