October 25, 2017

The Head of the Trump Campaign’s Data Firm Offered Assange Help with Clinton Emails

The WikiLeaks founder declined the offer to work together.

Bill Clark/ZUMA

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The head of Cambridge Analytica, a data firm used by Trump’s presidential campaign, reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange last year to offer to help release a trove of some 30,000 of Hillary Clinton’s email messages from her time as Secretary of State. 

The Daily Beast reports Alexander Nix made the offer in an email, which Assange eventually rejected in favor of working on his own. It’s not clear if the emails in question were ever obtained by WikiLeaks or any other entity; they have never been published. (Assange confirmed the email to the Daily Beast; Cambridge Analytica declined a request for comment).

Clinton’s emails were a key campaign issue, with Trump frequently referring to them in order to rally his base. During a news conference in July 2016, Trump publicly called on Russia for help in tracking them down. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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