"We received data from Facebook," the former director of Cambridge Analytica confesses today. Alexander Nix acknowledges that the company has received data from researcher Aleksandr Kogan. He denies this element until a new hearing held Wednesday in Britain and reported by IBT. Cambridge Analytica, the UK company (now reworked) recruited in 2016 by Donald Trump's campaign team, has hitherto denied using unlawfully collected data from some 87 million Facebook users.
On Wednesday, Alexander Nix retracted his statements. "Of course, the answer to this question should have been 'yes'," he mentioned, referring to a first interview where the question was put to him. Alexander Nix, however, denied deliberately deceiving the British MPs to whom he had made his first statements. He claims that his company deleted the data and did not use it after receiving it.
Alexander Nix also apologized for what he said in a report by the Channel Channel in which he said that the Cambridge Analytica online campaign played a decisive role in Donald Trump's electoral victory. "It's not only deeply embarrassing, but it's something I regret a lot," he said. Alexander Nix admits today that these words were exaggerated to attract what he thought was a potential customer.
Alexander Nix persists on one point. Cambridge Analytica was not involved in the Brexit campaign, he said. He still claims that whistleblower Christopher Wylie (read Christopher Wylie: the man who can blow up Palantir's flight and Cambridge Analytica (and Facebook?)) Lied about Cambridge Analytica's involvement in Brexit.
He also still denies information in the Financial Times that he had withdrawn $ 8 million from the funds of Cambridge Analytica before it closed last month.
Alexander Nix has finally denied knowing of a meeting between an employee of his company, Brittany Kaiser, and Julian Assange, at the Embassy of Ecuador in 2017. At his first appearance, Alexander Nix told the committee: " We have no connection with WikiLeaks We have never spoken to anyone at WikiLeaks We have never dealt with WikiLeaks We have no relationship with them, period.
What is the connection between Cambridge Analytica and Julian Assange?
This employee met with Julian Assange to discuss the US elections says the Guardian. Documents that mention the identity of visitors to the Ecuadorian Embassy obtained by the Guardian reveal that this senior manager of Cambridge Analytica until the beginning of this year, visited Assange on February 17, 2017. A meeting intended to evoke with the recluse of the embassy the "American elections".
Brittany Kaiser claims to have been in charge of managing the donations of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange's organization. She mentions having used cryptocurrency in favor of WikiLeaks. A charity action according to her. The reports sent to the investigators reveal that money was given to him by third parties in the form of "gifts and payments".
Cambridge Analytica and WikiLeaks are already under investigation by special advocate Robert Mueller in the United States. These new revelations, however, raise new questions about the precise nature of the relationship between the two organizations. There was no known link between the two organizations until October 2017, when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had "reached out" to Julian Assange in July 2016. The company would have offered to help him index and disseminate 33,000 stolen emails to Hillary Clinton.
Julian Assange, for his part, issued a statement saying that he had refused Cambridge Analytica's offer. Alexander Nix said the same thing to Westminster MPs in February, when he appeared before the DCMS.
