Former Cambridge Analytica chief executive Alexander Nix used his return to the DCMS Committee to hit back against the reporting that led to his company’s downfall, and took advantage of parliamentary privilege to attack Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower who sparked the run of stories, as a “resentful” “liar” who had made allegations that were “proven false”.
In the face of hostile questioning from MPs, who forced him to recant elements of his previous testimony in front of the committee, Nix made his case that Cambridge Analytica was the victim in the affair: the victim of a “concerted campaign” by the “global liberal media” – including the “extremely powerful” Guardian – to destroy his company in an attempt to spark a second EU referendum and bring down Donald Trump as President.
Collins responds, denying that he, at least, is part of a global conspiracy to overturn Brexit: “A lot of the allegations against you have come from people who worked with you; not just Mr Wylie, but others too. Questions will remain, at least while people speak of you that way. But we’ve got our answers, so thank you for coming and speaking with us today.”
Farrelly asks, if Nix is unfairly victimised, why are so many people out to get him?
Nix: “I think our involvement in the election of a president who’s been so polarising for many voters put a huge target on our back. Since that day, although it was a huge success for the company and our business growth, it turned out to be our undoing, because there were actors, not least the Democrats and the liberal media, who were out to destroy us.
“Couple that with the reporting in the UK, driven largely by Carole and Guardian about our involvement in Brexit, and obviously that has proved to be false reporting in every way… and you add in to the mix an extremely jealous and resentful employee who has sat and stewed in three years over his baby, and he went to Carole and shared every fantastical allegation he could come up with.
“She put this into print, it went viral on a global scale and you have the makings of a perfect storm. You have someone people want to hate, because of our involvement with trump; you have someone out to destroy us who is feeding snippets to a media organisation which is incredibly powerful. And the Guardian and particularly Carole clearly thought that if our involvement in the referendum could be shown to be wrong, they could push for a second referendum. People in America can’t accept that Trump is their president, and people in Britain want to overturn the referendum.
“Yes, gosh, I’m so guilty of being foolish but that hardly justifies the sort of cataclysmic response that we’ve got from the media.
Stevens returns to the Financial Times’ report that Nix took $8m out of the company before it collapsed. Nix: “I’m not answering your question. I haven’t had the ability to consider the matter myself.”
(That’s a much less vehement answer than the one he gave three and a half hours ago, when he said “the allegation is false, the facts are not correct.”)
Nix: In February 2018, we maybe had 30 or 35 clients.
Stevens: Do you ever do any due diligence on prospective clients?
Nix: Clearly not enough, as was demonstrated by the Channel 4 video.
Stevens: But do you ever?
Nix: Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. If you’re working for Mercedes Benz, it’s a different proposition to working for a company you’ve never heard of.
Meanwhile, the Guardian’s Media editor Jim Waterson has been digging on Dominic Cummings’ plans to troll parliament over his refusal to appear in front of this committee. Waterson writes:
A source very close to Cummings told the Guardian the political strategist intends to voluntarily attend parliament in order to watch MPs debate his refusal to attend parliament.
“He plans to unveil a banner from the public gallery reading ‘where the fuck is our £350m for the NHS’ so that he can hijack the BBC 6 [O’Clock News] for Vote Leave’s core message,” the source claimed.
Christian Matheson asks who owns the various arms of SCL, and Nix refuses to answer.
Matheson asks if Steve Bannon or Robert Mercer are shareholders; Nix again refuses to answer.
Matheson notes that a US citizen, investing in a company, which then provides electoral services in a UK election, could be illegal. Nix says that on that matter, he can’t speak, since it’s under investigation. He does add, again, that CA didn’t work on the referendum.
Collins asks Nix to explain the structure of Cambridge Analytica and SCL. Nix whips out a pre-prepared four-page document and asks to hand it to Collins directly: It shows, he says, “the way the company expanded, contracted, and expanded again led to quite a complex structure, but it happened quite naturally and was not the result of a mafia-style organisation as the committee previously said.”
(The document will be published later, Collins says.)
Christian Matheson returns to a leaked Cambridge Analytica pitch doc, which proposed DDoS hacking attacks. Nix says it never set up the company which would have carried out that business, and never carried out such attacks.
Matheson points out that such attacks are illegal. Nix says that since they were never carried out, that is moot.
O’Hara asks Nix about the Psy Group, an Isreaeli social media firm dragged into special prosecutor Mueller’s investigations into the US election. Nix says he’s never heard of them, and that reports that they worked with SCL may or may not be true, since he doesn’t know what was happening in those parts of the group.
“The first I heard of this company was in this article, and I can’t speak more than that.”
Collins turns to the claims that an Israeli intelligence firm worked alongside Cambridge Analytica in its campaigns in Nigeria. Was Nix aware of that?
Nix: “This is another groundless accusation that I believe was made by Mr Wylie. He suggests that this is something that has been reported to the authorities, so while it would be tempting to talk through with you, this is another area that I can’t discuss.”
Collins now quotes from a transcript of the Channel 4 report: Channel 4 asked if Nix had worked with Black Cube, and Nix said yes. Nix now recants that, and says he was completely mistaken.
Nix has “not knowingly” worked with former or current Israeli officers, he says.
Collins notes he may not have been aware of someone else in his company doing it, and Nix replies pointing out that all he meant is that one cannot tell who is and isn’t an intelligence officer: “You might be an intelligence officer right now,” he says to Collins.
