"Things don't need to be true, as long as they’re believed": British firm credited with Donald Trump’s election win boasted they could entrap politicians with bribes and prostitutes
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Senior executives at Cambridge Analytica, the data firm credited with Donald Trump’s election victory, boasted the firm could entrap politicians using bribes and Ukrainian sex workers in hidden camera footage.
Alexander Nix, the British firm’s chief executive, told an undercover reporter they could use ex-Mi6 spies to dig up dirt on political opponents, which would then be discreetly posted on social media.
He also suggested he could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well.”
And he said the operation could be kept secret through a web of shadowy front companies or sub-contractors. “A different entity, with a different name,” he said.
“So that no record exists with our name attached to this at all.”
You can read sections of the transcripts from the undercover footage below
The admissions were filmed at a series of meetings at London hotels over four months, between November 2017 and January 2018, where an undercover reporter for Channel 4 News posed as a fixer for a wealthy client hoping to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.
(Image: PA)
(Image: AFP)
Mr Nix was joined in the meetings by Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global, and the company's chief data officer, Dr Alex Tayler.
The firm is at the centre of a scandal over claims it harvested more than 50 million Facebook profiles to help ex-Trump strategist Steve Bannon influence public opinion ahead of the 2016 US election.
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Theresa May's spokesman said: "The allegations are clearly very concerning.
"It is essential that people can have confidence that their personal data will be protected and used in an appropriate way.
(Image: Paul Davey / SWNS.com)
(Image: AFP)
"It is absolutely right that the Information Commissioner is investigating this matter.
"We expect Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and all the organisations involved to co-operate fully."
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Matt Hancock told MPs the reports were "clearly very worrying".
He added: "We expect all organisations to co-operate with this investigation in whatever way the information commissioner sees fit."
The comments came as Damian Collins, chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, secured an urgent question on the matter in the Commons. Mr Collins called for a "broader investigation" into the activities of Cambridge Analytica.
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A Cambridge Analytica spokesman told Channel Four News: “We entirely refute any allegation that Cambridge Analytica or any of its affiliates use entrapment, bribes, or so-called “honey-traps” for any purpose whatsoever…”
They said: “Cambridge Analytica does not use untrue material for any purpose.”
And they insisted that opposition research and intelligence gathering, the use of subcontractors, working discreetly with clients and the use of encrypted communications are all common practice and legitimate.
(Image: REUTERS)
The Transcripts:
The meetings with an undercover reporter for Channel 4 News were held on:
November 2017, Hari Hotel - Mark Turnbull and Alex Tayler
November 2017, Dorchester Hotel - Mark Turnbull and Alex Tayler
December 2017, Berkeley Hotel - Mark Turnbull
January 2018, Berkeley Hotel - Alexander Nix and Mark Turnbull
December 2018, phone call with Alexander Nix and Mark Turnbull
Below are sections of transcripts from the undercover footage.
January 2018, at the Berkeley Hotel:
(Image: Channel 4)
Reporter: “It has to be the deep digging and what we want to know is what is the expertise of the deep digging that you can do to make sure that the people know the true identity and secrets of the people?
Nix: “Oh, we do a lot more than that. I mean deep digging is interesting but you know equally effective can be just to go and speak to the incumbents and to offer them a deal that’s too good to be true, and make sure that that’s video recorded, you know, these sorts of tactics are very effective instantly having video evidence of corruption, putting it on the internet, these sorts of things.”
Reporter: “And the operative you will use for this is who?”
Nix: “Well someone known to us.”
Reporter: “OK so it is somebody, you won’t use a Sri Lankan person no because there’s issue.”
Nix: “No. No, no, we’ll have a wealthy developer come in, somebody posing as a wealthy developer.”
Turnbull: “I’m a master of disguise.”
Nix: “Yes. They will offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded on cameras, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the internet.”
Reporter: “So on Facebook or YouTube, or something like this?”
Offering bribes to public officials is an offence under both the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Cambridge Analytica operates in the UK and is registered in the United States.
January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Nix: “Send some girls around to the candidate’s house, we have lots of history of things.”
...
Reporter: “For example you’re saying when you’re using the girls to introduce to the local fellow and you’re using the girls for this, like the seduction, they’re not local girls? Not Sri Lankan girls?”
Nix: “I wouldn’t have thought so no, we’ll bring some, I mean it was just an idea, I’m just saying, we could bring some Ukrainians in on holiday with us you know, you know what I’m saying.”
Reporter: “They are very beautiful Ukrainian girls.”
Nix: “They are very beautiful, I find that works very well.”
…
Nix: “And the answers are hypothetical and that’s really important is, is please don’t pay too much attention to what I’m saying because I’m just giving you examples of what can be done and what, what has been done. The right solution will be made for the right, for your problem.”
Mr Turnbull was present for the exchanges above, despite them contrasting with his comments at an earlier meeting, on the 19 December at the Berkeley Hotel:
Turnbull: “So we’re not in the business of fake news, we’re not in the business of lying, making stuff up, and we’re not in the business of entrapment, so we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t send a pretty girl out to seduce a politician and then film them in their bedroom and then release the film. There are companies that do this but to me that crosses a line…”
December 2017 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Turnbull: “… we just put information into the bloodstream to the Internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again, over time, to watch it take shape.”
…
(Image: Channel 4)
December 2017 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Reporter: “So it is like almost like a remote control you do this, but is, you’re, you’re not pushing, no?”
Turnbull: “Yes, like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’ the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’”
Reporter: “Yes”
Turnbull: “So we have to be very subtle, and we’ve got time to do this.”
January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Nix: “What we think are concerns as foreigners or as educate elites, or as professionals aren’t concerns with the people that really matter… Like in England the best example was the MPs expenses and yeah people spending just a few hundred or a few thousand pounds on something really upset people.”
Reporter: “Right.”
Nix: “It was such a small thing, it was tiny. You never could have guessed that.”
Reporter: “But it matters to the people.”
Nix: “What matters to the people.”
Reporter: “Things like that in Sri Lanka... If minister is homosexual that is resign...”
Nix: “These are things that, I mean, it sounds a dreadful thing to say but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true, as long as they’re believed.”
January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Nix: “…we have a long history of working behind the scenes you know, many of our clients don’t want to be seen to be working with a foreign company... so often we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of experience in this.”
December 2018 – phone call:
Nix: “We do incognito very well indeed, in fact we have many clients who never wish to have our relationship with them made public”
Reporter: “Of course.”
Nix: “And, and we’re used to that, we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive relationship with you.”
December 2017 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Turnbull: “And it may be that we have to contract under a different name”
Reporter: “From Cambridge Analytica?”
Turnbull: “A different entity, with a different name, so that no record exists with our name attached to this at all, and I think we can work in that space as well.”
Reporter: “You have done this in other countries, or?”
Turnbull: “We’ve looked at doing this in other countries where it is an issue, and I know that Alexander is very open to this. Very open. Different, different name, and the team, different cards. So, no one knows. Very, very, very discreet.”
November 2017 at the Hari Hotel:
Turnbull: “You mentioned intelligence gathering as well as part of the mix, didn’t you?”
Reporter: “Corporate, yes.”
Turnbull: “We have, we have relationships and partnerships with specialist organisations that do that kind of, that do that kind of work…. So that, you can, you know who the opposition is, you know their secrets, you know their tactics.”
December 2017 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Turnbull: “Well, there are various intelligence-gathering organisations that operate very discreetly to find information like that”
Reporter: “That, like MI5, no, no”
Turnbull: “Well, yeah, lots of security services people go into companies like that. I know people who used to work for MI5, MI6, they now work for these”
Reporter: “Private organisations?”
Turnbull: “Private organisations. Whose job is to gather research… they will find all the skeletons in his closet quietly, discreetly, and give you a report.”
Reporter: “You can recommend?”
Turnbull: “Absolutely. Specialise in finding this kind of”
January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Reporter: “How is it done with the payment to these organisations, where you’re using another organisation?”
Nix: “We take care of that, we subcontract to them”
Reporter: “So we pay you, and you will?”
Nix: “We use some British companies, we use some Israeli companies.”
Reporter: “Israeli people? Israeli? From Israel?”
Nix: “From Israel. Very effective in intelligence gathering.”
January 2018 at the Berkeley Hotel:
Turnbull: “We’ve just used a different organisation to run a very, very successful project in a Eastern European country where they did a really, no-one even knew they were there, they just drift, they were just ghosted in, did the work, ghosted out and produced really, really good material. So we have experience in doing this.”
November 2017 at the Dorchester Hotel:
Turnbull: “The two fundamental human drivers, when it comes to taking information onboard effectively are hopes and fears, and many of those are unspoken and even unconscious. You didn’t know that was a fear until you saw something that just evoked that reaction from you.”
Reporter: “Right, right, right.”
Turnbull: “And our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand what are those really deep-seated underlying fears, concerns… It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it’s all about emotion, it’s all about emotion.”