Sensational Vote Leave campaign activity revealed by whistleblower

The chairman of a House of Commons committee investigating alleged misuse of Facebook users' data heard from the whisteblower earlier.

Wylie said he heard his predecessor died in suspicious circumstances in a Kenyan hotel after a "deal went sour".

He told the committee: "People suspected that he was poisoned in his hotel room.

"I also heard the police got bribed to not enter the hotel room for 24 hours.

"That's what I was told. I was not there so I can't speak to the veracity of that."

Wylie said he came forward after realising his work has a "wider impact" than he initially thought.

"As a citizen, one has a duty to report unlawful activity," he said, explaining that he came forward shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump.

"I wouldn't say it's just because of Donald Trump, but Donald Trump makes it click in your head that it has a much wider impact.

"I don't think that military-style information operations is conducive to any democratic process."

Asked about Cambridge Analytica's links to the University of Cambridge, he said: "It didn't have a formal relationship, but we did work with a lot of professors at the University of Cambridge, particularly the psychology department."

Wylie told the committee that AggregateIQ - the Canadian firm employed by Vote Leave to provide targeted marketing during the EU referendum - was set up by SCL Group, a strategic communications company linked to CA.

While internal documents showed that AIQ was effectively a "franchise", it was advantageous for the two companies to be presented as separate because of the requirement to avoid the appearance of "co-ordination" under US electoral law, he told MPs.

He said he "absolutely" believed that AIQ had drawn on CA databases in the referendum campaign, telling the committee: "You can't have targeting software that doesn't access the database. Cambridge Analytica would have a database and AIQ would access that database, otherwise the software wouldn't work."

But he said it was not clear how a database for UK voters might have been created: "My question is where did you get that data? How do you create a massive targeting operation in a country that AIQ hadn't previously worked in in two months?

"It baffles me as to how that could happen in such a short amount of time."

Some of the senior figures involved in SCL were extremely wealthy individuals who enjoyed using their money and their contacts to get involved in politics around the globe, claimed Wylie.

"You have to remember that a lot of these people are very wealthy already," he told MPs. "Alexander Nix in particular - there was one time when we were running late because he had to pick up a £200,000 chandelier.

"These are people who don't need to make a lot of money, but the thing that I learned is that for certain wealthy people, they need something to keep them occupied and they need projects.

"Going into the developing world and running a country is something that appeals to them."

Wylie claimed that SCL had been involved in a project in Nigeria in 2015 which had involved hacking the private information of Muhammadu Buhari, who was running for president.

And he claimed AIQ had distributed compromising material - known as kompromat - and videos designed to intimidate Buhari's supporters.

"The company utilised the services of an Israeli private intelligence firm, Black Cube," he said. "Black Cube on the Nigeria project was engaged to hack the now-president Buhari to get access to his medical records and private emails.

"AIQ worked on that project. AIQ was handed material in Nigeria from Cambridge Analytica to distribute online. That's distribution of kompromat and of incredibly threatening and violent video content which I've passed on to the committee.

"The videos that AIQ distributed in Nigeria with the sole intent of intimidating voters included content where people were being dismembered, where people were having their throats cut and bled to death in a ditch, they were being burned alive.

"There were incredibly anti-Islamic and threatening messages portraying Muslims as violent."

Wylie also alleged that AIQ had worked on a project in Trinidad & Tobago, which he claimed involved attempting to harvest the internet data of the country's entire population.

He said: "You've got AggregateIQ, who received 40% of Vote Leave's spending, also involved in projects which involved hacked material and kompromat and distributing violent videos of people being bled to death to intimidate voters.

"This is the company that played an incredibly pivotal role in politics here. Something that I would strongly recommend to the committee would be that they push the authorities here and give them the support they need to investigate this company."

Wylie said: "AggregateIQ, in part because it was set up and works within the auspices of Cambridge Analytica, inherited a lot of the company's culture of total disregard for the law."

He dismissed as "weasel words" AIQ's insistence that it was not a part of SCL and CA.

Wylie claimed he had met Vote Leave's campaign director, Dominic Cummings, in November 2015, at a point when it was clear that the eurosceptic group had no database of its own.

"Very shortly after that meeting, they then engage AIQ," he said, adding that his speculation was that the company was chosen because it would have "looked odd" if both Vote Leave and the separate Leave.eu Brexit campaign were both working with CA.

Vote Leave had got "the next best thing" to Cambridge Analytica by hiring "a company that can do virtually everything that CA can do but with a different billing name", he said.

And he told the committee: "This is a company that has worked with hacked material, this is a company that will send out videos of people being murdered to intimidate voters, this is a company that goes out and tries to illicitly acquire live internet browsing data of everyone in an entire country.

"I think a lot of questions should be asked about the role of AIQ in this election and whether they were indeed compliant with the law here."

Collins said that the committee had received a large amount of documentation from Wylie, some of which it intended to publish - possibly as early as Wednesday.

Wylie claimed Alexander Nix, the suspended chief executive officer of CA, was not truthful with the committee when he denied using Facebook data.

"It is categorically untrue, categorically untrue that CA has never used Facebook data," said Wylie.

"Facebook data and the acquisition using Aleksandr Kogan's data-set was the foundation of the company.

"That is how the algorithms were developed. They spent one million dollars at least on the acquisition of that data-set."

"I think Alexander Nix's comments to you were exceptionally misleading and, to be frank, not only misleading, but dishonest."

In a statement released after the hearing, Black Cube said: 

"Black Cube has always operated within the boundaries of the law in every jurisdiction it operates, following legal advice from the world’s leading law firms.

"Whilst we are flattered that we are seemingly being connected with every international incident that occurs, we will state that Chris Wylie’s testimony is a flagrant lie.

"We categorically declare that neither Black Cube, nor any of its affiliates and subsidiaries, have ever worked for, or engaged with, SCL, Cambridge Analytica, or any of their affiliates and subsidiaries. Black Cube has never operated in Nigeria nor has it worked on any project connected to Nigeria, and none of its employees have ever set foot in Nigeria.

"Black Cube will investigate this claim on a pro bono basis, and will reveal the truth and the motive behind Wylie's defamatory lie.

"Additionally, we will file a massive defamation claim against any entity whom we find has defamed Black Cube, including Christopher Wylie, SCL, and Cambridge Analytica, and pursue them for every penny."