United States election law says foreign nationals may not make strategic decisions or provide analysis for American campaigns, but that's exactly what Cambridge Analytica did in 2014 according to former employees.
Former employees who shared documents with the Washington Post say they effectively controlled the campaigns of a number of Republican candidates during the 2014 midterm election cycle.
Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group were overwhelmingly staffed by non-U.S. citizens — mainly Canadians, Britons and other Europeans — at least 20 of whom fanned out across the United States in 2014 to work on congressional and legislative campaigns, the three former Cambridge workers said.
Many of those employees and contractors were involved in helping to decide what voters to target with political messages and what messages to deliver to them, the former workers said. Their tasks ran the gamut of campaign work, including “managing media relations” as well as fundraising, planning events, and providing “communications strategy” and “talking points, speeches [and] debate prep,” according to a document touting the firm’s 2014 work.
Cambridge whistleblower Christopher Wylie also told the Washington Post that they had reason to believe the company lied on immigration documents given to employees they sent to the United States to advise the campaigns.
We don't know if that's true, but internal documents reviewed by the Washington Post show that the company sent 41 employees to the United States during the 2014 election cycle and spent at least $7.5 million on the program. Those employees reportedly worked for Republicans in Oregon, Colorado, and North Carolina.
In North Carolina, Cambridge was reportedly hired by GOP director Dallas Woodhouse who you may recognize as one of the biggest assholes in the whole country. Woodhouse ran point for the state GOP's racist voter suppression campaign and gerrymandering.
It appears Woodhouse was receiving help from foreign agents at the same time he was doing everything in his power to suppress black voters. And I'm sure he thinks of himself as a "Real American."