More evidence of Russian meddling and collusion

[someoneyouknow]

Another log has been thrown on to the raging fire of Russian meddling and collusion. It seems a data firm hired by the con artist campaign may have been giving information on how to tailor political messages to Russian oil company Lukoil.

No, that is not a misprint. Lukoil, an oil company, asked, several times, for information on how Cambridge Analytica used people's information to send tailored messages to them on Facebook.

“I remember being super confused,” said Mr. Wylie [one founder of Cambridge Analytica], who took part in one of the Lukoil meetings.

“I kept asking Alexander, ‘Can you explain to me what they want?’” he said, referring to Mr. Nix [chief executive of Cambridge Analytica]. “I don’t understand why Lukoil wants to know about political targeting in America.”

“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially.

A second person familiar with the discussions backed up Mr. Wylie’s account, but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement.

Though Lukoil is not state-owned, it depends on Kremlin support, and its chief executive, Vagit Alekperov, has met with Mr. Putin on a number of occasions. Reuters reported last year that Lukoil and other companies received instructions from the state energy ministry on providing news stories favorable to Russian leadership.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russia.html

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Shocker:

When the Russia question came up during a hearing at the British Parliament last month, Alexander Nix did not hesitate.

“We’ve never worked in Russia,” said Mr. Nix, head of a data consulting firm that advised the Trump campaign on targeting voters.

“As far as I’m aware, we’ve never worked for a Russian company,” Mr. Nix added. “We’ve never worked with a Russian organization in Russia or any other country, and we don’t have any relationship with Russia or Russian individuals.”

But Mr. Nix’s business did have some dealings with Russian interests, according to company documents and interviews.

Russians? What Russians? We've never worked with any Russians.

 

[someoneyouknow]

UPDATE

The Massachusetts Attorney General is now going to investigate Cambridge Analytica which was hired in summer 2016 as part of the con artist campaign's three-pronged data operation.

Not only was the firm illegally pulling people's data from Facebook, as noted above, it may have then been giving this information to Russia who turned around and used that information to target people on Facebook. Russia did so in its efforts to help get the con artist elected.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/18/politics/massachusetts-ag-cambridge-analytica/index.html