The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said that panel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election left questions unanswered about links between President Trump’s campaign data firm and the Russian government.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on ABC’s “This Week” Republicans on the committee left a major question unanswered by shutting down their investigation last week. Schiff said there was still much work left to do, including finding out how Cambridge Analytica worked with Russians.
News broke Saturday showing Cambridge Analytica harvested the private information of about 50 million Facebook users against the social media’s site’s terms of service.
The New York Times later reported Cambridge Analytica has links to Lukoil, a Russian oil company.
Cambridge Analytica has denied using its data to support the Trump campaign. The business has been suspended from Facebook.
“We need to find out what we can about the misappropriation of the privacy, the private information of tens of millions of Americans,” Schiff said. “That misappropriate information used by this digital arm of the Trump campaign to manipulate American voters and, of course, the links between Cambridge Analytica and Julian Assange … The links between this Russian researcher and Cambridge Analytica and the links between Cambridge Analytica and a Russian oil company, Lukoil, that wanted information about reaching American voters.
“All of that needs to be investigated and the premature conclusion of this investigation doesn’t allow us to do our job.”
The House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election quickly devolved into partisan sniping and leaking after it started last year. Republicans on the committee ended the investigation last week and announced they found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in 2016.
The committee also disputed the intelligence community’s findings that Russia developed a preference for the Trump campaign in the election.
