Top Trump Donor Urged Data Firm to Coordinate with WikiLeaks to Gather Hacked Clinton Emails

I recently told you about Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that worked for the Trump 2016 campaign seeking to coordinate with WikiLeaks in finding Hillary Clinton’s lost emails.

We now have a little more meat for that story.

A Wall Street Journal story pegs a top Trump donor as being the impetus for the request.

A source familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Rebekah Mercer, a billionaire supporter of Trump, exchanged emails with Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix about the hacked emails.

The Journal reports that Mercer asked Nix if his firm could compile the hacked emails related to Clinton and make them more easily searchable after she received the suggestion from a person she met at an event supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

The Cambridge CEO reportedly responded to Mercer’s request, saying he had reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, asking him to pass along Clinton-related emails, according to the Journal.

In fact, Assange confirmed these reports, saying he’d been contacted by Nix, but that he preferred to work alone.

I can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica [prior to November last year] and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks.

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) October 25, 2017

Either they didn’t have the emails or he hadn’t been given the go-ahead from the Kremlin.

Ok.

The Journal also reports that Mercer and Nix exchanged emails with Peter Schweizer, the co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative research group co-founded by former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon and funded by the Mercer family.

Schweizer told the two in an email that he was working on creating a searchable database of the Clinton-related emails, but it was never released publicly, a source told the Journal.

Trump’s team has tried to distance themselves from Cambridge Analytica, claiming they received most of their opposition info from the RNC. Meanwhile, according to the FEC filings, the campaign paid the firm nearly $6 million dollars.

That’s a lot of money for a firm you’re trying to distance yourself from.

And for those who are still hazy and need reminding: RUSSIA IS NOT OUR FRIEND.

Neither is WikiLeaks. They’re not heroes, and are considered to be hostile players, linked to Russia, by many of our lawmakers.

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