House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., agreed with the claim by Alexander Nix, the now-suspended CEO of the data firm Cambridge Analytica, that Republicans on the committee did not ask challenging questions when Nix testified last year.
“Sadly, Mr. Nix’s description of the questioning by our Republican colleagues is all too accurate and reflect the profound disinterest and lack of seriousness they have exhibited throughout the Russia investigation,” Schiff said in a statement Tuesday.
The statement comes after a video published by Channel 4, a British broadcaster, emerged showing that Nix appeared to mock the panel for their questions after he spoke with them via a video conference as they investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“After five minutes — done,” Nix said in the video, which was filmed between November and January. “They’re politicians, they’re not technical. They don’t understand how it works.”
Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm which worked worked for President Trump’s campaign, and Facebook have come under fire after it was reported the data firm improperly harvested information about 50 million Facebook users.
Schiff said that whistleblower Christopher Wylie has been invited to testify before the Intelligence Committee and that he has accepted. Schiff also said Monday that the invitation was extended to Wylie because he has “serious questions about the veracity of the testimony” provided to the panel by Nix.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the election and if the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin, reportedly asked Cambridge Analytica last fall to surrender emails from any of its employees who worked for the Trump campaign. The firm complied to the request.
Facebook announced on Friday that Cambridge Analytica, it’s parent company Strategic Communication Laboratories, Wylie, and others would be suspended from Facebook in response to the reports that not all data that had been obtained had been properly deleted.
Cambridge Analytica has denied that it did anything improper with Facebook data.
