As questions have mounted about data firm Cambridge Analytica’s alleged misuse of Facebook data from up to 50 million user profiles, it has not only caught the eye of Congressional investigators but also the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
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Sources tell ABC News several digital experts who worked in support of Trump’s bid in 2016 have met with Mueller’s team for closed-door interviews. The staffers, most of whom were employed by the RNC, served as key members of the 2016 operation working closely with the campaign and the data firm, the sources said. The company worked closely with the Republican candidate’s political team.
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Cambridge Analytica was brought on by then-Trump campaign digital advisor Brad Parscale in early June 2016, after the data science firm pitched him on its services, sources told ABC News. Three Cambridge Analytica employees, including two data scientists, immediately moved to San Antonio to embed with Parscale’s firm and by August, the number of fulltime staffers in Texas ballooned to 13.
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Cambridge Analytica was one entity involved in creating the voter information and fundraising database now known as Project Alamo, built jointly by staffers from the RNC, the Trump campaign and Parscale’s firm with data supplied by the RNC and the campaign, sources said.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told ABC News in a statement that they “used the RNC for its voter data and not Cambridge Analytica. Using the RNC data was one of the best choices the campaign made. Any claims that voter data were used from another source to support the victory in 2016 are false.”
A source with direct knowledge who has met with the special counsel’s team tells ABC News investigators have asked former senior level campaign staff about the digital operations, specifically how data was collected and used and how assets were targeted specifically in the battleground states. Mueller’s team has asked witnesses about the process of “micro targeting” which is the process of using data to identify specific groups of individuals and thereby influence their thoughts and potentially their actions.
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NEW: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has had growing interest in better understanding the relationship between Trump campaign, RNC and Cambridge Analytica, sources tell @ABC. https://t.co/BOF8JsjbGs pic.twitter.com/JTbmwOytHn
— ABC News (@ABC) March 21, 2018
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