Wendy Siegelman NEWSTRACS
---
---
wendy s medium
...
Psy-Group
- Psy-Group is an Israeli-based company headquartered in Cyprus, that describes itself in a marketing brochure as “Leaders in Intelligence and Infuence” and “proprietary methods of intelligence collection form the cornerstone to all of our operational activities.” The firm is “managed by an elite group of high-ranking officers from one of the world’s most renowned intelligence agencies.”
- In August 2016 Erik Prince arranged a meeting to introduce Psy-Group founder Joel Zamel to Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower. George Nader, who had once worked for Prince at Blackwater, attended the meeting along with Stephen Miller. Nader told Don Jr that “the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president.” Joel Zamel presented a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help Trump, and after the election a source said Nader paid Zamel up to $2 million.
- Psy-Group formed a partnership with Cambridge Analytica after the 2016 election to try to win business from the U.S. government and other clients. In February 2018 Special Counsel Mueller subpoenaed bank records for payments made to the Psy-Group’s Cyprus bank accounts. Shortly afterwards, Psy-Group informed employees that it was closing down.
- WhiteKnight: the New York Times reported that Joel Zamel was affiliated with an internet company based in the Philippines called WhiteKnight, whichGeorge Nader worked with to purchase a presentation that showed the impact of social media campaigns on Trump’s electoral victory.
Psy-Group and Black Cube
- Psy-Group and Black Cube are both defendants in a Canadian lawsuit that is exposing some of the tactics used by both firms. West Face Capital alleged that business rival Catalyst Capital Group hired Psy-Group and Black Cube to defame West Face using shady methods, including sting operations and online disinformation campaigns, after West Face won a 2014 bid for telecomm company Wind Mobile. Black Cube and Psy-Group were accused of targeting a judge who had ruled against Catalyst in a dispute with West Face. It is not clear if Black Cube and Psy-Group worked together or if they worked separately on behalf of Catalyst.
- On a side note, in the 2014 deal which triggered the lawsuit, Wind Mobile was sold to West Face by a subsidiary of VimpleCom, which was sued unsuccessfully by Catalyst for Canadian $1.3 billion. VimpleCom, renamed Veon, is owned by Mikhail Fridman, the co-founder of Alfa Bank in Russia.
Wikistrat
- The WSJ reported in April 2018 that Mueller’s team was investigating Wikistrat, a company founded in Israel in 2010 described as a “crowdsourced consulting firm,” and its co-founders Joel Zamel and Daniel Green. Wikistrat had been contracted by the UAE in 2015 to conduct war game scenarios on Islamist political movements in Yemen. According to a source Zamel had met with Mueller who asked about George Nader, a former employee of Erik Prince at Blackwater, and recently an adviser to UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
- Attorney Marc Mukasey (a former partner of Giuliani)said that his clients Zamel and Green were not a focus of the probe. Mueller also asked Zamel “questions about his work, including for certain clients.” Per reporting on Psy-Group’s August 2016 meeting arranged by Erik Prince with Donald Trump Jr., one of Joel Zamel’s prospective clients was Donald Trump.
- According to a June 2018 *Daily Beas*t article, Joel Zamel “wanted former national security adviser Michael Flynnto be a member of the firm’s (Wikistrat’s) advisory board.” Adam Lovinger, a Pentagon strategist who had been named to the National Security Council by Flynn and wasreportedly associated with Flynn Intel Group, introduced Joel Zamel to various Pentagon officials. Per a source Zamel had been introduced to Flynn by Bijan Kian, Flynn Intel Group’s former vice chairman of its board of directors, however Zamel’s attorney Mukasey denied Zamel and Flynn met. It appeared in 2017 that Wikistrat had ceased operations.
Inspiration
- An article in Haaretz describes how Ben Carson personally presented Trump with a plan from Israeli-based company Inspiration, run by former IDF intelligence officers. The plan was for voter manipulation in swing states using information Inspiration collected from a Super PAC, “which it then used to compose strategies and slogans that would elevate Trump and ‘float all kinds of things’ about Hillary Clinton.”
- The original report from Walla describes Ronen Cohen, a former Central Command intelligence officer who founded Inspiration in 2012. The article says Inspiration was not directly hired by the Trump campaign but was introduced by Ben Carson and funded by a PAC and hired three months prior to the election. Inspiration received voter data from the PAC and analyzed the data with another unnamed Israeli company. The messaging created by Inspiration was then passed to an American counterpart for review, revision, or distribution.
Russia Entities...
Michael Flynn-related entities
Michael Flynn has barely been in the news recently, especially since he pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI at the end of 2017. However, as one of the earliest members of Trump’s campaign, and one of the most senior members of Trump’s administration for a short time, Flynn was involved with many people and companies that did social media and influence work on behalf of Trump.
- In August 2017 Flynn amended his financial disclosure form to show he had agreed to work with SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, to help win new US government contracts. However, a source reported that Flynn did not receive compensation or perform any work.
- In the US, Cambridge Analytica hired Josh Weerasinghe, who had worked at defense companyBAESystems and had previously worked with Flynn at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to focus on winning US government contracts.
- In April 2018, Senator Bob Menendez on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent two letters to the State Department and SCL Group requesting information on the $490K State Department contract awarded to SCL “when Michael Flynn was serving as an advisor for the company and on President Trump’s transition team.” The letters requested a detailed description of the work that Michael Flynn performed as an advisor for SCL Group.
- As reported earlier, Flynn allegedly had interactions with Joel Zamel, the founder of Psy-Group and Wikistrat, who wanted Flynn to join the advisory board of Wikistrat.
Flynn Intel Group
- Flynn started his company, Flynn Intel Group, in 2014 and closed it at the end of 2016 before he joined the Trump administration. Flynn partnered with Bijan Kian and Philip Oakley,and according to company records, Flynn Intel Group was “a premier private intelligence and cybersecurity advisory firm.” Flynn received small payments from Russian firms Kaspersky Labsand Volga-Dnepr Airlines. And according to the *NYT* Flynn joined the advisory board of OSY Technologies, part of the NSO Group, a secretive cyberweapons dealer founded by former Israeli intelligence officials.
- Bijan Kian introduced Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin to Flynn Intel Group to do PR and lobbying work against Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric and someone Erdogan considered an enemy, who was living in Pennsylvania. Alptekin paid Flynn Intel Group $530K through his Netherlands-based company Inovo BV and Alptekin said funding also came from Ratio Oil Exploration, an Israeli natural gas company — although the firm denied any connection to Alptekin.
- FIG Cyber: Tim Newberry, who co-founded White Canvas and VizSense with Jon Iadonisis, listed on his LinkedIn profile that in August 2016 he was chief executive of FIG Cyber, a unit of Flynn Intel Group.
White Canvas and VizSense
- White Canvas was founded by Jon Iadonisi, a former Navy SEAL, and Tim Newberry, and is described as a technology company with expertise in cyber operations, digital influence, social media, and other areas. Iadonisi was close to Michael Flynn and had served with him in Iraq,and reportedly Flynn Intel Group had rented office space from White Canvas. White Canvas received $150,000 in 2016 from the Navy for “deep and dark web capability and gap analysis.”
- VizSense was created by Jon Iadonisi and Tim Newberry as a spinoff from White Canvas. Michael Flynn’s companies as well as those run by Iadonisi and Newberry overlap in many ways. For example, in Flynn’s contract with Inovo BV, it appeared that Tim Newberry worked for Flynn Intel group as the head of their “Special Operations Cyber Force.”
- In May 2017 the Washington Post reported that Flynn’s friend and business associate Jon Iadonisi was doing work to help Flynn on behalf of the Turkish government and Ioadonisi was also doing social media work on behalf of Trump. FEC filings showed that the Trump campaign paid $200,000 for “data management services” to Colt Ventures, which was an investor in Iadonisi’s social media company VizSense. The payment was for “a social-media project that involved video-content creation and “millennial engagement” in the campaign’s final month.”
Colt Ventures
- Colt Ventures was founded by Darren Blanton who served as an adviser to Trump’s transition. Blanton met frequently with Steve Bannon and reported to him on work done for the campaign, according to a source.
- A May 2018 *Bloomberg* story described efforts to win Black voters for Trump, and how a Breitbart writer, along with Steve Bannon, recruited Bruce Carter to target three areas, Florida, Philadelphia, and North Carolina. Bannon introduced Carter to Darren Blanton and Jon Iadonisi to help provide funding and social media support for Carter’s efforts, although it’s not clear if funding was provided. In October 2016, during the final presidential debate in Las Vegas,Blanton introduced Carter to Erik Prince and Michael Flynn, and then later to Rebekah Mercer.
- Based on the Bloomberg story, it appears that Darren Blanton, who ran Colt Ventures which was a part owner of Jon Iodonisi and Tim Newberry’s firm VizSense, also knew Erik Prince, Steve Bannon, and Rebekah Mercer. This raises a bigger question about whether or not the companies Flynn was indirectly connected to — VizSense, White Canvas, and Colt Ventures — had any business involvement with SCL or Cambridge Analytica?
Additional Entities Not Included in Chart
Data sources reportedly affiliated with campaign:
- RNC
- Palantir
- Experian
- Acxiom
- InfoGroup
Others:
---
3 26
Skip to content
NewsTRACS
NewsTRACS
Resources
About
Contact
Donate
Bluesky
Mastodon
Patreon
Image shows excerpts from SEC filing for Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp on the left and bottom, and logos for Yorkville Advisors, TMTG and Trump Organization on the right.
Two Trump Org execs and two Trump Media execs including CEO Devin Nunes are directors of Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp
Read More
Recent Posts
Image shows headshot of Devin Nunes lower left and behind him SEC filing cover page for Blue Water Acquisition Corp. III (top) and Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (lower right).
Devin Nunes and others linked to Trump Media became officers of a company soon after it made an unsuccessful $10 billion bid for Venezuelan-state-owned Citgo Petroleum’s U.S. assets
Alex Spiro left, Donald Trump Jr. right, Thumzup Media SEC filing excerpt
Celebrity and Elon-Musk-lawyer Alex Spiro is chairman of a Dogecoin treasury company and an investor in a Dogecoin venture with Donald Trump Jr.
Brittany Kaiser AlphaTON
Former Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser’s latest gig is CEO of crypto firm AlphaTon Capital – which has several links to people from Russia
PragerU Videos
Rightwing nonprofit PragerU is making inroads with the White House and has spent tens of millions of dollars to expand their reach on Facebook and Google
Eric Trump Gryphon Digital and Brittany Kaiser
Eric Trump’s stake in American Bitcoin Corp. could reach $367 million when it goes public – the stake of his partners may be over $3 billion
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. new Spac deal
Eric and Don Jr. partner with Dominari exec Kyle Wool and Trump Media advisor Kevin McGurn to launch New America Acquisition I Corp. to raise $300 million
Image shows Vadim Shulman on left, Christopher Ruddy on right, and section of Newsmax SEC filing in background
A look at businessman Vadim Shulman who is a significant investor in the pro-Trump right-wing media outlet Newsmax
Image shows headshot of Eric Trump left and Don Jr. right and the Trump name above and money floating behind.
An Austrian billionaire who allegedly once worked with East German Stasi spies links to a network tied to several Trump family deals
Image shows part of the 2014 Spherix SEC filing and overlayed on top is the first page of the SEC charges against Barry Honig and others.
Barry Honig, charged by SEC for $27M stock scheme, was 2013-2014 investor in Spherix – now named Dominari Holdings, part owned by Don Jr. and Eric Trump, and involved in several Trump family deals
Image from Trump Meme coin website on the right showing Trump raising a fist, image in center of headline : "Freight Technologies Secures up to USD $20 Million to Create an Official Trump Token ($TRUMP) Treasury", and images on left from the 2022 SEC
Freight Technologies may buy $20 million of Trump’s meme coin – 2022 filings list a big shareholder linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Trump Org Dominari
Over 20% of Dominari Holdings common stock is owned by 5 Trump Org execs – of that Don Jr. and Eric Trump together have 2.9M shares worth $13.4M
Donald Trump Eric and Don Jr in front of Trump Tower
Russian-American businessman who loaned $8M to Trump Media in 2021-2022 sent $10.8M to firm that may link to Don Jr. and Eric Trump’s new business partners
headshots of Eric Trump on left and Don Jr on the right with graph bars behind and an excerpt of Dominari Holdings press release announcing them as advisors.
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are advisors and investors in Dominari Holdings which has ties to a network linked to an alleged $27 million stock fraud
Image shows headshots of Donald Trump Jr. on the left wearing a blue tie and Eric Trump on the right wearing a red tie. In the background is the press release for Dominari Holdings, see link in article for full text.
Don Jr. and Eric Trump joined the advisory board of Dominari Holdings – a tenant at Trump Tower with lease payments that may be almost $750,000 per year
Image shows a headshot of Jared Kushner wearing a coat and red tie. In the background is an image of money and floating green bills.
Jared Kushner is enriching himself by managing billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar and also investing in controversial deals worldwide
Image shows Trump in the middle hand raised taking oath of office, on the left is photo of Trump memecoin with words 'Fight Fight Fight' and below the Melania Official Meme with image of her smiling and hands together in front of her face, on the right is headshot of Justin Sun above logo for World Liberty Financial.
Trump’s crypto grifts: billions in paper profits, millions from memecoin trading fees, and new funding from Chinese-born entrepreneur Justin Sun
Prince Alwaleed and Elon Musk
Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding has now invested $800 million in Elon Musk’s xAI and Musk has set-up an xAI London company as he aligns with Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform party
X.AI London Ltd company info and photo of Nick Candy, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage
As rumors swirl that Elon Musk may donate $100 million to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party Musk has also just incorporated X.AI London Ltd
Trump Bankruptcy Filing Pages
Bankruptcy filings reveal new info on Trump Media DJT shareholder and affiliate that allegedly conducted naked short selling–a practice prohibited in the U.S.
Donald Trump World Liberty Financial and Cambridge Analytica
Update on Cambridge Analytica, its spawn Emerdata Limited, and a former director who now advises a Trump-supported crypto project
Load More
Content on NewsTRACS.com is free for everyone. Donations support the time and costs for this site and for ongoing research. Thank you!
Donate
About
Open source research on power, politics and money with a focus on: the U.S., kleptocracy, graft, Trump, Russia, business and real estate deals, surveillance and influence companies and other legal but curious people and networks. Read more
Resources
Find open source resources links to open source websites with data on companies, people, transactions, leaks, reports, tools and more.
Resources
Trump’s Truth Social
Donald Trump Eric and Don Jr in front of Trump Tower
Russian-American businessman who loaned $8M to Trump Media in 2021-2022 sent $10.8M to firm that may link to Don Jr. and Eric Trump’s new business partners
Trump Bankruptcy Filing Pages
Bankruptcy filings reveal new info on Trump Media DJT shareholder and affiliate that allegedly conducted naked short selling–a practice prohibited in the U.S.
Donald Trump TMTG Filing
An April SEC filing for Trump Media & Technology Group lists shares that can be sold by early investors and reveals new details on key DJT stock owners
Trump & Associates
Image shows excerpts from SEC filing for Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp on the left and bottom, and logos for Yorkville Advisors, TMTG and Trump Organization on the right.
Two Trump Org execs and two Trump Media execs including CEO Devin Nunes are directors of Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp
Image shows headshot of Devin Nunes lower left and behind him SEC filing cover page for Blue Water Acquisition Corp. III (top) and Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (lower right).
Devin Nunes and others linked to Trump Media became officers of a company soon after it made an unsuccessful $10 billion bid for Venezuelan-state-owned Citgo Petroleum’s U.S. assets
Eric and Donald Trump Jr. new Spac deal
Eric and Don Jr. partner with Dominari exec Kyle Wool and Trump Media advisor Kevin McGurn to launch New America Acquisition I Corp. to raise $300 million
Image shows Vadim Shulman on left, Christopher Ruddy on right, and section of Newsmax SEC filing in background
A look at businessman Vadim Shulman who is a significant investor in the pro-Trump right-wing media outlet Newsmax
Russia
Image from Trump Meme coin website on the right showing Trump raising a fist, image in center of headline : "Freight Technologies Secures up to USD $20 Million to Create an Official Trump Token ($TRUMP) Treasury", and images on left from the 2022 SEC
Freight Technologies may buy $20 million of Trump’s meme coin – 2022 filings list a big shareholder linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg
Pavel Fuks Trump Tower featured image
Ukrainian oligarch Pavel Fuks has been linked to Russian Intelligence, employed Giuliani and has newly reported ties to Trump Tower in NYC
Roman Abramovich TriStar Capital Michael Matlin
Roman Abramovich company was behind $120 million mortgage to Fisher Island developer
Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto
Trump International Hotel & Tower Toronto and a web of links to Russia
Cambridge Analytica
Donald Trump World Liberty Financial and Cambridge Analytica
Update on Cambridge Analytica, its spawn Emerdata Limited, and a former director who now advises a Trump-supported crypto project
Rebekah Mercer and Robert Mercer
Cambridge Analtyica funder Rebekah Mercer has a new nonprofit called RAM Veterans Foundation that aims to rank veterans’ charities
Cambridge Analytica Emerdata Limited Dynamo Recoveries v4
Cambridge Analytica Update: Emerdata Limited and Dynamo Recoveries Limited
Erik Prince
Unplugged Systems Ownership Erik Prince and others
New Erik Prince Business Venture Unplugged Systems Ownership Chart
Eitanium Limited shareholder director chart
Eitanium Ltd Chart: Erik Prince and directors and their network of cyber surveillance related companies
Erik Prince UAE MBZ photo
From the Seychelles to the White House to Cambridge Analytica, Erik Prince and the UAE are key parts of the Trump story
U.S. and Brexit
Prince Alwaleed and Elon Musk
Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding has now invested $800 million in Elon Musk’s xAI and Musk has set-up an xAI London company as he aligns with Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform party
Jim Mellon Alrosa diamonds photo
Brexit ‘Bad Boy’ Arron Banks, another ‘Bad Boy’, and a fund that invested in Russian diamond company Alrosa in 2013 and 2016 with the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
Matthew Elliott UK Parliament photo
Matthew Elliott, CEO of pro-Brexit Vote Leave, was a partner at Awareness Analytics Partners (A2P) which has links to Trump, DeVos and the Koch brothers
Home
Resources
About
Contact
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Bluesky
Mastodon
Substack
Patreon
Donate
© 2026 NewsTRACS
---
Welcome to NewsTRACS created by Wendy Siegelman. NewsTRACS uses open source data and covers power, politics and money with a focus on: the U.S., kleptocracy, graft, Trump, Russia, business and real estate deals, surveillance and influence companies and other legal but curious people and networks.
During Trump’s first presidency the media reported extensively on financial corruption, kleptocracy (government by those who seek personal gain at the expense of the governed) and influence campaigns during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections.
New citizen researchers emerged on social media sites like Twitter and often leveraged expertise in other areas to research and share information, which was sometimes picked up by reporters and featured in mainstream news stories.
In 2017 I published a Buzzfeed opinion piece entitled “I’m One Of The People Investigating Trump On Twitter. You Should Work With Us, Not Mock Us.” I described the value provided by many citizen researchers who used open source data and shared information for free and how mainstream media could leverage this phenomenon.
Several organizations such as ProPublica and Bellingcat are leaders in using open source data in their investigations and stories. And groups such as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have provided the public with invaluable databases, resources and reporting.
But years after Trump became president, few news outlets have truly innovated or disrupted their news gathering and publishing process to leverage open-source researchers and their findings. Most for-profit media companies benefit by keeping their research and findings proprietary.
It has been several years since I published the piece in Buzzfeed. I created NewsTRACS in 2022 to share my open-source charts and publications for free to all readers.
In my professional career I spent over two decades developing and managing online news, financial and informational websites for individual and professional users – creating, licensing and developing content, functionality, UI and UX design, etc. launched NewsTRACS to experiment with new ways of creating and displaying charts and articles and sharing open-source research. Check out the Resources section which includes links to websites useful for researching corporate entities and financial networks in the U.S. and worldwide. Feedback is welcome through the Contact page.wendy@newstracs.com
I am available for paid research consulting projects through the Contact page or email wendy@newstracs.com.
Have a tip? Send it to: info@newstracs.com. And donate here to support maintenance of this site and ongoing research and publishing. Thank you!
---
Wendy Siegelman – Articles, Quotes and More
Below are links to several older articles published in The Daily Beast, The Guardian, Byline Times and Buzzfeed and other publications that cite my work.
Articles
The Daily Beast – September 27, 2021
Who Murdered the Lawyer of Victoria’s Secret Billionaire Les Wexner?
By Wendy Siegelman, William Bredderman Researcher
Byline Times – April 20, 2021
Did Cambridge Analytica Collude With Russia’s Intelligence Services to Interfere in U.S. Elections?
The Guardian – May 5, 2018
Cambridge Analytica is dead – but its obscure network is alive and well
Buzzfeed News – July 25, 2017
I’m One Of The People Investigating Trump On Twitter. You Should Work With Us, Not Mock Us.
Publication Quotes and References
Forbes — July 12, 2025
Trump’s Crypto Firm Raised $52 Million—Likely Sending Millions To His Family, New Disclosure Reveals
But World Liberty Financial disclosed in an SEC filing last week (first flagged by independent journalist Wendy Siegelman) that it sold another $52.1 million of tokens to 1,966 investors—this time distributing $50.7 million to Trump and other founders, rather than retaining all proceeds within the company as in its initial sale.
Forbes — March 6, 2025
Surprising Fact – Dominari Holdings is headquartered in Trump Tower. The company pays the Trump Organization $747,000 in annual rent, reported independent journalist Wendy Siegelman.
Observer — December 3, 2024
Elon Musk’s xAI Just Doubled Its Valuation to $50B—Here Are 4 Biggest Winners
Despite a drop in X’s value, Prince Alwaleed and his investment company Kingdom Holding additionally participated in xAI’s $5 billion fundraising earlier this year. During the round, Kingdom Holding invested $400 million in xAI, according to financial filings first reported by the independent journalist Wendy Siegelman.
Mother Jones — November 12, 2024
Don Jr.’s New Gig: An Investment Firm Connected to Christian Nationalists
As NewsTRACS’ Wendy Siegelman reported, in 2023, Malik’s investment company acquired Public Square, a business hub that says it “empowers like-minded, patriots to discover and support companies from a wide variety of industries that share their values.”
CNBC — January 23, 2023
Former top FBI counterintelligence agent Charles McGonigal charged with violating Russia sanctions
Fokin “reports to Lord Barker (the chair of the board of directors of the company) and presumably Mr. Deripaska,” Shestakov said in the filing, which first was reported by the media outlet Forensic News in December 2021, after the document was highlighted earlier that month in a tweet by the journalist Wendy Siegelman.
Byline Times — February 8, 2022
As independent journalist Wendy Siegelman first revealed, Ahmad Al-Khatib, the company’s sole investor, was formerly a director at Emerdata Limited – a Cambridge Analytica holding company. He is also the CEO of marketing research firm Questionardo Limited.
NBC News — January 12, 2021
Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank cut future ties with Trump, citing Capitol riots
Ladder Capital, a small real estate investment trust that specializes in riskier debt that many other banks avoid, has issued Trump millions of dollars in loans for four of his New York properties.
Financial records filed with the New York Department of Finance show four loans to Trump by Ladder Capital for an estimated $282 million: $160 million for 40 Wall Street, $100 million for Trump Tower, $15 million for Trump Plaza, and $7 million for Trump International Hotel & Tower.
The loans were uncovered and first reported on by **Wendy Siegelman,* an independent reporter who has written for the Guardian and Buzzfeed.*
Manhattan DA Cy Vance Appellate Brief — September 21, 2020
Appellate Brief related to subpoena for Trump’s tax returns and financials from Mazars as part of a criminal tax fraud investigation
Salon — September 16, 2020
Invisible company owned by Rudy Giuliani got taxpayer-backed PPP money — but where did it go?
A payroll company owned by Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, took between $150,000 and $350,000 in taxpayer-backed emergency small business loans this spring. It’s unclear what Giuliani did with the money…Independent journalist Wendy Siegelman appears to have been the first to report both the company and the loan.
Intelligence Online — September 2, 2020
China Dorian Barak joins dots between UAE, Israel, Beijing and Erik Prince
As noted by British journalist Wendy Siegelman on Twitter, Prince’s company and the Chinese group both invested in the Israeli startup Agent Vi
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence U.S. Senate on Russian Active Measures, Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election — August 20, 2020
Footnotes 4386 and 4388 on page 679
Jackson Free Press — November 13, 2019
God Save the Governor: Phil Bryant, Brexit Soldier
Freelance journalists J.J. Patrick and Wendy Siegelman investigated the project, with Patrick reporting in Byline in November 2017 that Wigmore told him Big Data Dolphins was “already fully functional” and “based out of Bristol and Mississippi for insurance (and) financial services.” In 2018 testimony, Banks told the U.K. House of Commons that the UM project had been delayed and amounted to no more than “empty office space” with “no staff.”
The New York Review of Books, NYR Daily — August 27, 2019
Among the big investors in this shady netherworld of intelligence-gathering and influence operations, there are naturally many overlaps. Tchenguiz’s interests and investments connect with those of Erik Prince, as the freelance journalist Wendy Siegelman has shown in her fine-grained mapping of the field on Medium. Both men have links to one of the best-known private intelligence companies, Black Cube, founded in Israel by another former military intelligence officer. Tchenguiz was involved in setting up Black Cube and was its first major client. (Black Cube first came to widespread public attention whenThe New Yorkerreported that its operatives were working for the former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in an apparent effort to frustrate the newspaper’s reporting of allegations of sexual assault made against him.) Though Black Cube denies it, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wiley has claimed the two companies did work together. The Israeli newspaperHa’aretzhas reported that Prince also considered investing in a joint venture with Tchenguiz and the Israeli financier Dorian Barak.
Siegelmanhas also tracked the development of a new company named Emerdata, since its emergence in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica bankruptcy. Julian Wheatland and Alexander Nix were both initially directors, though since they’re now under investigation for their Cambridge Analytica activities, they’ve both had to resign. Robert Mercer’s daughters, Rebekah (who has worked closely with Steve Bannon) and the less high-profile Jennifer, are the major investors, alongside Prince’s billionaire business partner, Johnson Ko. (The Mercer sisters have also acquired their father’s stake in Breitbart, the far-right media outlet Bannon built up.) Emerdata is thus essentially a reincarnation of Cambridge Analytica, possibly with even more funding.
Fast Company — July 26, 2019
The strange afterlife of Cambridge Analytica and the mysterious fate of its data
The holding company now appears to be largely owned by conservative activist Rebekah Mercer and her sister Jennifer, whose shares are held in trust and via their U.S.-based Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, according to Cambridge’s bankruptcy filing in New York. The remaining fifth of Emerdata’s shares are owned by several prior SCL Group minority investors and a number of Hong Kong-based shell companies. Investigative journalist Wendy Siegelman first reported on Emerdata and its links to SCL last year.
Fast Company — March 22, 2019
The Mueller report: When and how we’re likely to see it
Independent journalist Wendy Siegelman has published a handy chart showing cases from the Special Counsel’s Office or related cases of high profile figures in the Trump-Russia investigation
The Guardian — October 13, 2018
Citizen journalists — the fighters on the frontline against Russia’s attacks
And when the firm threatened to sue theGuardian, it was the pioneering work of another open-source investigator, Wendy Siegelman, working with US journalist Ann Marlowe, who created a chart of its many complicated corporate structures that theObserverandGuardian’s lawyers drew upon in our response.
Washington Monthly — October 2, 2018
Will Erik Prince Ever Pay for Lying to Congress?
Wendy Siegelman does some amazing sleuthing on the financial aspects of the Russia controversy, but I have a hard time following all the shell companies and other shenanigans of the rich and famous. I think it definitely is worth looking at her reporting, including when it comes to former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince.
Having read through Siegelman’s work and other more mainstream articles, it appears to me that Prince gave false and misleading testimony on a wide range of topics, but the key issue that brought him before Congress was the meeting he had in the Seychelles in early pre-inauguration January 2016.
The Times of Israel — August 23,2018
Cambridge Analytica-linked businessman helped start Black Cube, lawsuit claims
The UK parliamentary committee cited a May 2017 chart created by investigative journalists Wendy Siegelman and Ann Marlowe that includes 30 companies interlinked within the SCL Group, but noted that the structure had since changed.
Forbes — August 2, 2018
From Cambridge Analytica’s Ashes, An Odd Pair Promises An ‘Ethical’ Startup
In July, his own past was called into question in a Medium post from independent journalist Wendy Siegelman, who linked Al Khatib to businesses in Russia and the U.A.E.. The report also made loose connections between Al Khatib and Erik Prince, the Trump-supporting entrepreneur who founded controversial private-mercenaries provider Blackwater. Prince is now wrapped up in Robert Mueller’s FBI investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election over claims he travelled to the Seychelles to try to set up a backchannel between Trump and Russia. The Auspex cofounder simply brushed off any implications in Siegelman’spost. “None of the points the article is hinting towards are true,” he says in a WhatsApp
Fast Company — May 15, 2018
Revealed: Mystery $1M inaugural donation linked to Trump judicial advisor
The campaign report, filed by Jay Webber’s congressional campaign, was first highlighted by journalist **Wendy Siegelman. Leo has been identified as the president of the BH Fund, a nonprofit that was given influence over hiring and admissions at George Mason University’s law school as part of an anonymous $20 million donation.
The Washington Post — May 3, 2018
What the life and death of Cambridge Analytica tells us about politics — and ourselves
Yet it’s not even clear that the people who created Cambridge Analytica are leaving this field. As freelance journalist Wendy Siegelman and Business Insider reported in March, two members of the Mercer family — major backers of conservative political causeswhose money and management was key to Cambridge Analytica from the beginning — have joined the board of Emerdata.
BBC — May 3, 2018
Cambridge Analytica: Will data scandal firm return from the dead?
A New-York based investigative journalist has tracked other alleged links between SCL and Emerdata.
Wendy Siegelmantold the BBC that she was particularly intrigued by Emerdata’s appointment of the Chinese businessman Johnson Chun Shun Ko as one of its directors in January.
Mr Ko had not previously been a director of either Cambridge Analytica or the SCL Group.
“He has a business partnership with Erik Prince, who plays a key role in the Trump-Russia investigation,” she said.
“And [President Trump’s former chief strategist] Steve Bannon has reportedly been a very close associate of Mr Prince.”
Mr Bannon co-founded Cambridge Analytica and recently said he had coined its name.
“I wonder if Bannon is still operating in the background even though he’s not a director,” added Ms Siegelman.
Newsweek — May 3, 2018
What is Emerdata? As Cambridge Analytica shuts, directors surface in new firm
Emerdata was first discovered by independent journalist Wendy Siegelman, who covered the new company back in March in a detailed blog post on Medium. Siegelman toldNewsweekthat the SCL Group had a “very complex corporate structure that on many levels seems designed to be opaque and confusing.”
“I had heard the
in late March that [SCL Group director] Nigel Oakes said it was his understanding that Emerdata was set up to acquire all of SCL and Cambridge Analytica but hadn’t expected a mass closure,” she added.
Snopes.com — May 3, 2018
Cambridge Analytica Shuts Down — But Key Figures Open New Firm
New York-based investigative journalist Wendy Siegelman, who first reported on of Emerdata, told us that some have expressed concern that closing some of the company’s operations could be an attempt to hinder access to data by investigators: “Investigators in the UK, US, and other countries are still trying to figure out where facebook data was used, including in the 2016 election, and without a review of SCL/CA’s computers, hard drives, databases, documents, etc, it’s not yet clear what they actually did historically.”
Shareblue Media — May 2, 2018
Trump’s shady data firm may be about to pull its biggest stunt yet
In August, the shady crew behind Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL Group set up a new company called Emerdata, which was first uncovered by journalist Wendy Siegelman earlier this year.
USA Today — March 22, 2018
Cambridge Analytica active in elections, big data projects for years
SCL, founded in 1993 by former Saatchi & Saatchi advertising executive Nigel Oakes, has operated at least 18 separate companies in Britain and 12 in the United States, according to corporate filings in Britain and the U.S. compiled by Wendy Siegelman and Ann Marlowe, independent researchers in New York, and verified by USA TODAY. Some of these companies are now dormant or dissolved.
Videos and Podcasts
Data, Ethics and Trust — October 19, 2018
Podcast with Dr Charles Kriel —One Year Anniversary Programme
The Dworkin Report — July 2, 2018
Seminars: Russian Propaganda Explained — May 21, 2018
AFP News Agency — January 14, 2018
---