Trump campaign appears to distance itself from data firm after Assange report

The Trump campaign operation appeared to distance itself from data mining firm Cambridge Analytica on Wednesday, following a report that its leader said he sought contact with Julian Assange over Hillary Clinton’s emails. 

Trump campaign aide Michael Glassner said in a statement that the 2016 campaign relied on the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its data experts “as our main source for data analytics.”

{mosads}The Daily Beast reported earlier Wednesday that Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, wrote in an email to a third party that he tried to contact WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the private emails Clinton had deleted from the home email server she used during her work at the State Department. 

Hours later, Glassner, who serves as executive director of Donald Trump for President, released the statement addressing the 2016 campaign’s data operations. 

“Once President Trump secured the nomination in 2016, one of the most important decisions we made was to partner with the Republican National Committee on data analytics,” Glassner said. 

“Leading into the election, the RNC had invested in the most sophisticated data targeting program in modern American history, which helped secure our victory in the fall,” Glassner continued. “We were proud to have worked with the RNC and its data experts and relied on them as our main source for data analytics.” 

Glassner added, “any claims that voter data from any other source played a key role in the victory are false.” 

President Trump’s campaign is known to have partnered with Cambridge Analytica for some of its data operations. The data mining firm is the U.S. version of its British parent company, SCL Group. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, once served on the company’s board of directors. 

Earlier this month, Cambridge Analytica said it had been contacted by the House Intelligence Committee for information in connection with its investigation into Russian interference. 

WikiLeaks released troves of emails from the personal account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in the lead up to the 2016 vote last year. The U.S. intelligence community has traced the hacked emails back to Russian intelligence services.