Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Says He Will Cooperate with Russia Probes

It was just one of several big revelations from Christopher Wylie.

On Sunday morning’s “Meet the Press,” former Cambridge Analytica staffer Christopher Wylie made a number of stunning revelations about the data mining firm hired by Trump during the 2016 election. Cambridge Analytica has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, following media reports that the firm improperly obtained the data of millions of Facebook users in order to use it to sway elections.

Wylie said on Sunday that the number of Facebook users whose data was gathered by the British firm could “absolutely” surpass the social media giant’s own estimate of 87 million. He also said that he is planning to fully cooperate with both congressional and justice department probes into Russian interference in the US election, and that he believes compromised Facebook data could be accessible to many people and stored in different countries, including Russia. 

Wylie has previously suggested in interviews with a number of media outlets that the Facebook data harvested by Cambridge Analytica was used by the company to sway the 2016 election. “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons,” Wylie told the British Observer. “That was the basis the entire company was built on.”

Wylie’s statements come just days before Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify in Washington before three different congressional committees—first before a joint hearing of the Senate judiciary and commerce committees on Tuesday, and then again on Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s expected that he’ll be grilled about steps Facebook is taking to protect user data, and to prevent foreign powers from exploiting the platform to influence elections.

In recent weeks, Facebook has admitted that it learned that Cambridge Analytica was harvesting its users data more than two years ago. The company contacted the political research firm and Cambridge Analytica promised to delete the data. Facebook never followed up. In an NBC interview last week, Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg acknowledged that the company should have gone public with the data breach earlier. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate