Data guru’s Assange outreach is Trump camp’s closest tie to WikiLeaks yet (via @allegrakirkland) https://t.co/K1XuF03cgI pic.twitter.com/FHZu8bdxRS
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) October 25, 2017
Just to be clear: Trump's digital consultants contacted Assange and offered to help release stolen Hillary emails https://t.co/xiDw3Bc3ic
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 25, 2017
NEW: @JulianAssange confirms @woodruffbets' Team Trump / Wikileaks scoop. https://t.co/u7rkM8DeeP
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) October 25, 2017
Alexander Nix, who heads a controversial data-analytics firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign, wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton’s missing 33,000 emails.
Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton’s missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix’s email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn’t want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own.
If the claims Nix made in that email are true, this would be the closest known connection between Trump’s campaign and Assange…
Those 33,000 messages were a central focus of Trump and his allies during the campaign. At least one Republican operative tried to recruit hackers to obtain those emails, according to The Wall Street Journal. And at a press conference on July 27, 2016, while the Democratic National Convention was underway, Trump—then the Republican nominee—said he hoped the Kremlin would recover those emails.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’ll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said.
And on the campaign trail, Trump praised WikiLeaks and tweeted about its findings. Politifact calculated that he mentioned the site about 137 times during the campaign….
Russiagate Open Thread: Cambridge <del>Analytica</del> ApocrylypticaPost + Comments (121)