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Both Republican candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump employed Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election. Mueller is now scrutinizing the Trump campaign’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, whose board included Trump’s campaign CEO and former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Bannon interviewed Patten in July 2016 for his SiriusXM radio show, Breitbart News Daily, about a group Patten represents called the Committee to Destroy ISIS. There is no evidence that Patten did any work with Cambridge Analytica or the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. But his relationship with the data firm did not end with the 2014 midterm elections. According to The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, Patten “played a central role” in the firm’s work in Nigeria in early 2015—work that included hiring Israeli computer hackers to search for “kompromat,” or compromising information, on the candidate challenging the incumbent president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan. Patten didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Nigeria campaign.

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analytica-offered-politicians-hacked-emails-witnesses-say

Cambridge Analytica was offered politicians' hacked emails, say witnesses

This article is more than 1 year old

Hackers offered personal data about future Nigerian president and future PM of St Kitts and Nevis, sources say

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg finally addresses Cambridge Analytica scandal

Carole Cadwalladr

@carolecadwalla

Wed 21 Mar 201814.59 EDTLast modified on Tue 2 Oct 2018 05.48 EDT

A man stands in front of electoral campaign posters in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2015]

The data analytics firm that worked on the Donald Trump election campaign was offered material from Israeli hackers who had accessed the private emails of two politicians who are now heads of state, witnesses have told the Guardian.

Multiple sources have described how senior directors of Cambridge Analytica – including its chief executive, Alexander Nix – gave staff instructions to handle material provided by computer hackers in election campaigns in Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis.

They claim there were two episodes in 2015 that alarmed members of staff and led them to refuse to handle the data, which they assumed would have been obtained illegally.

SCL Elections, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, denied taking possession of or using hacked or stolen personal information from such individuals for any purpose in either campaign.

The revelations are the latest to focus attention on Cambridge Analytica, whose activities are being investigated in the US by the special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into possible Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election.

[Quick guide

How the Cambridge Analytica story unfolded]

The firm is under pressure to explain how it came to have unauthorised access to millions of Facebook profiles. Politicians in the US and UK have accused it of giving misleading statements about its work, and the information commissioner has demanded access to the company’s databases.

In all, the Guardian and Observer has spoken to seven individuals with knowledge of Cambridge Analytica and its campaign in Nigeria in early 2015.

Hired by a Nigerian billionaire to support the re-election of Goodluck Jonathan, Cambridge Analytica was paid an estimated £2m to orchestrate a ferocious campaign against his rival, the opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari. Jonathan lost out to Buhari in the presidential race. There is no suggestion Jonathan knew of the covert operation.

]The evil genius of Cambridge Analytica was to exploit those we trust most

Richard Wolffe]

Staff working on the campaign say in early 2015 they metIsraeli cybersecurity contractors in Cambridge Analytica’s offices in Mayfair, London.Employees say they were told the meeting was arranged by Brittany Kaiser, a senior director at the firm.

The Guardian and Observer have been told the Israelis brought a laptop from their office in Tel Aviv and handed employees a USB stick containing what they believed were hacked personal emails.

Sources said Nix, who was suspended on Tuesday, and other senior directors told staff to search for incriminating material that could be used to damage opposition candidates, including Buhari.

“It made everyone feel really uncomfortable,” said one source. “They wanted people to load it into their email programs.”

People “freaked out”, another employee said. “They wanted to have nothing to do with it.”

13:04

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: 'We spent $1m harvesting millions of Facebook profiles' – video]

One member of the campaign team told the Guardian and Observer that the material they believed had been hacked included Buhari’s medical records. “I’m 99% sure of that. Or if they didn’t have his medical records they at least had emails that referred to what was going on.”

When news of the London meeting filtered back to Cambridge Analytica staff working on the ground in Nigeria, it caused panic, the source said. Local security advisers told the firm’s team to leave the country immediately because if opposition supporters found out, they could turn on them.

“What is clear is that the security of their employees didn’t even seem to have occurred to them,” said one former employee. “It was a very serious situation and they had to evacuate immediately.”

An SCL Elections spokesperson said team members working on the Nigeria campaign remained in the country throughout the original campaigning period, and left in accordance with the company’s campaign plan.

Profile

Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica]

The Guardian has seen an email from Nix dated 26 January 2015, referring to the “Israeli team”.

It says: “Although it is outside of our remit, I have asked for an update on what the Israeli team has been working on and what they will be delivering between now and the election.”

In a second episode in early 2015, sources said the same Israeli team that had worked on the Nigeria campaign obtained private information of the St Kitts and Nevis politician Timothy Harris. At the time he was an opposition leader, and is now prime minister.

Sources have said staff did not want to handle what appeared to be stolen material. “Nobody wanted to have anything to do with it,” one employee said.

A statement from SCL Elections said: “During an election campaign, it is normal for SCL Elections to meet with vendors seeking to provide services as a subcontractor. SCL Elections did not take possession of or use any personal information from such individuals for any purposes. SCL Elections does not use ‘hacked’ or ‘stolen’ data.”

The statement added: “Members of the SCL Elections team that worked on the Nigeria campaign remained in country throughout the original campaigning period, although the election was rescheduled and SCL was not retained for the entirety of the extended campaign period.

“Team members left in accordance with the company’s campaign plan. Team members were regularly briefed about security concerns prior to and during deployment and measures were taken to ensure the team’s safety throughout.”

The revelations will add to the questions facing Cambridge Analytica and the techniques it uses to influence elections for its clients.

In the UK, the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner’s Office are investigating the firm for breaches of electoral and data protection law.

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How Goodluck Jonathan lost the Nigerian election

For the first time ever a Nigerian president has failed to win the popular vote. It’s a landmark for democracy, but where did it all go wrong for Jonathan?

Max Siollun

Wed 1 Apr 2015 05.59 EDTLast modified on Wed 1 Apr 2015 09.44 EDT

Goodluck Jonathan

Goodluck Jonathan misread the mood on the Chibok kidnappings and alienated all the wrong people. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Goodluck Jonathan has earned the dubious distinction of being the first president in Nigerian history to lose an election. In many ways, Jonathan was the architect of his own downfall. He made critical mistakes that turned the public and allies against him, and led them to gravitate towards the opposition. Here’s where it all went wrong:

1. Don’t cross the boss

When Nigeria emerged from 15 years of military rule in 1999, Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic party (PDP) was formed by wealthy retired generals to inherit power from the military. One of the godfathers was General Olusegun Obasanjo, who has governed Nigeria twice (between 1976-1979 and 1999-2007). Jonathan made the mistake of alienating Obasanjo; leading the general to write a public 18-page letter containing lacerating criticism of the president in December 2013. A party member likened Obasanjo’s hectoring of Jonathan to a father’s disappointment with his son.

Getting on the wrong side of Obasanjo is the political equivalent of crossing a mafia don

Rather than make peace with the 77-year-old, Jonathan’s office retaliated.

Getting on the wrong side of Obasanjo is the political equivalent of crossing a mafia don. You will pay. Obasanjo’s attacks on Jonathan intensified. In February, an irate Obasanjo quit the PDP and dramatically ripped up his party membership card on television.

Jonathan was naïve to think he could remain president without the support of PDP godfathers like Obasanjo. Although Nigeria is no longer under military rule, many retired millionaire generals call the shots from behind the scenes.

2. Playing fair

Previous Nigerian presidents were too cynical to expose themselves to the unpredictable risk of a fair election. The election victories of PDP presidents during the past 16 years have been partially “assisted” by electoral malpractice. That changed when Jonathan nominated Professor Attahiru Jega as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) in 2010. Jega vowed to reform Nigeria’s electoral process to ensure free and fair elections.

The former university lecturer exuded calm authority and integrity. He has painstakingly prepared for the task over the past four years by studying the rigging methods used in previous elections, implementing an elaborate system of voter registration, training thousands of electoral staff, and introducing biometric readers to identify voters by reading their thumbprint.

Jonathan created the environment for the emergence of these changes and gave Jega the freedom and authority to conduct reforms that led to a credible election. But by giving Jega a free hand to play fair, he allowed Jega to craft the weapons that were used to oust him from power.

3. Boko Haram and the Chibok kidnaps

Jonathan’s relations with party members at times resembled a football coach antagonising his star players

When Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in northern Nigeria, Jonathan failed to realise how much this would capture the public’s attention, both locally and internationally. His failure to speak about the kidnap for several weeks made him appear uncaring. These shortcomings were exacerbated by the behaviour of his wife, Patience, when she met the mothers of the kidnapped girls. Her ostentatious display and over-the-top emotions were mercilessly parodied.

Jonathan’s perceived casual indifference to the suffering of his people was compounded when he was photographed celebrating his niece’s lavish wedding just a few days after Boko Haram had killed 2,000 people in the town of Baga.

4. Bad management

Jonathan’s relations with party members at times resembled a football coach antagonising his star players into leaving for rival teams. His tendency to fall out with colleagues simultaneously weakened his party and strengthened the opposition. He quarrelled with one after another; leading several of them to leave the party in frustration and join the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). The alliance between these and the opposition shoved Jonathan out of power.

5. Corruption and cronyism

Nigerians refer to their country’s resources as the “national cake” which must be shared by its citizens. There was a perception that Jonathan gave slices of the cake largely to members of his own community. Many powerful members of his government were from Jonathan’s region in the deep south of the country. Even Jonathan’s wife was appointed as a senior civil servant in his home state of Bayelsa.

There was a perception that Jonathan gave slices of the cake largely to members of his own community

Under Jonathan’s presidency many militant leaders from the oil producing Niger Delta area in the south have become very rich from government patronage and contracts. Some of them have been awarded security contracts to guard the oil installations they once protested against and attacked.

Jonathan has also pardoned a former ally accused of fraud and money laundering, increasing the cloud of suspicion hanging over his government.

These events caused deep resentment in other parts of Nigeria and created the impression that Jonathan ran a government that benefits those from his part of the country, the south, but not many others.

Jonathan even managed to get into a public feud with the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the respected Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. In February 2014 Sanusi alleged that $20bn of Nigerian oil revenue was unaccounted for. Rather than investigating the claims Jonathan fired Sanusi for his impertinence at publicly hinting of government fraud.

Buhari’s victory is historic and unprecedented. However Jonathan was responsible almost as much as Buhari was.

Nigeria’s historic election at a glance - video

Max Siollun is a Nigerian historian and author of Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture 1966-1976 and Soldiers of Fortune: a History of Nigeria (1983-1993). Follow him on Twitter @maxsiollun

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