Tag: Political action committee

Cambridge Analytica executives aggressively sought the backing of rich GOP donors, who they believed would help the company “effectively corner the market” in the United States, internal records show. ?” Nix asked his researchers, who followed through, according to emails provided to The Washington Post by former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie. “They met with me I believe, but it was nothing that we found interesting, and the pitch was not compelling.” Internal documents and interviews with former Cambridge Analytica employees illustrate how intently the company — a spinoff of a British firm — worked to win over U.S. political clients for the 2014 midterms. At the time, the company had access to Facebook data that had been obtained by a researcher for academic purposes and improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, Facebook executives said last week. 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. [Cambridge Analytica harnessed Facebook data in work for super PAC led by John Bolton, according to former employees] “They used the psychographic stuff, and the Facebook data was a part of that,” said a former Cambridge Analytica employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy. The New York Times first reported that Cambridge Analytica harnessed its Facebook data in services it provided to the Bolton super PAC. In the 2014 cycle, GOP congressional campaigns and conservative-leaning groups paid at least $729,000 to the firm for a range of services, including research, data analytics and microtargeting. Follow @myhlee Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter for The Washington Post.