After interviewing Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie and other CA sources and reviewing leaked documents, the Washington Post has pieced together the story of how the dirty-tricking electioneers worked their way Republican political circles, as billionaire founder Robert Mercer opened doors for them with other notorious GOP billionaire backers, with an able assist from newly minted national security adviser John Bolton, a notorious war-criminal with close ties to terrorist groups like MEK.
The docs reveal how Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix tried to impress billionaires like Sheldon Adelson by building dossiers on them to impress them with the power of his surveillance apparatus (in one memo, Nix exhorts his staff, “Can we pull a LOAD of data on them????”) (the quadruple question-mark, or “toff’s interrogative,” is taught only to the top-performing Etonians).
In the end, they did not present Adelson with their dossier on his personality flaws and vulnerabilities.
Cambridge Analytica’s path to Republican glory started with Steve Bannon’s brokering of an investment by Robert Mercer. With help from these GOP insiders, they were able to sign the John Bolton Super PAC as a customer, billing them for $1.1 million for “research” — howtos for microtargeting potential voters using Facebook. The proposed that Bolton could trick people into exposing their friends’ personal data by enticing them to take a personality quiz. Bolton’s PAC is a laundry for Mercer money.
From there, CA received large paydays from Art Robinson, a Mercer-backed GOP candidate in Oregon, Colorado anti-abortion extremists Centennial Coalition, and For America, another Mercer front.
The John Bolton Super PAC, led by the former diplomat and foreign policy hard-liner, paid Cambridge Analytica more than $1.1 million in the 2014 and 2016 cycles for research, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Mercer has been the largest donor to Bolton’s super PAC, giving $5 million since the 2014 cycle, according to FEC records.Part of the work that Cambridge Analytica performed for Bolton’s super PAC was psychographic voter targeting, which the company claimed could profile voters on the basis of certain characteristics. The predictive microtargeting was based in part on data gleaned from Facebook profiles and other sources, according to documents and former Cambridge Analytica employees.
How Cambridge Analytica broke into the U.S. political market through Mercer-allied conservative groups [Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Craig Timberg/Washington Post]
(via Naked Capitalism)