Investigation: Cambridge Analytica and Psy-Group
One of the more untold stories of the saga is Psy-Group, a social media manipulation organisation in the same vein as Cambridge Analytica that made its way into the Trump campaign.
Joel Zamel was born in Australia in 1986.
In 1993, Nigel Oakes founded the organisation Strategic Communication Laboratories, which would later receive financial support from Lord Marland.
In 2003, Alexander Nix joined the organisation SCL Group.
After 2004, Nader started to work for Blackwater as a business agent in Iraq.
During the Presidency of George W. Bush, Nader and John Hannah worked with each other on foreign policy related to Iraq.
In 2005, SCL Group relaunched as a psychological warfare-focused organisation after Sir Geoffrey Pattie was installed as the chairman, and with assistance from Nigel Oakes’s brother, Alexander Oakes.
On July 20, 2005, SCL Group Limited was incorporated by Nigel Oakes, Alexander Oakes and Nix, with John Bottomley as Company Secretary.
In October 2005, Roger Gabb became a director at SCL Group, and was officially appointed on November 10, 2005.
At some stage, SCL Group partnered with the organisation Iota Global.
In 2007, SCL Group paid $20,000.00 to the lobbying organisation Global Policy Partners in Washington, DC to help advertise the company in the United States, which led to a business relationship with the Pentagon to conduct surveys in Iran and Yemen.
On January 12, 2007, Julian Wheatland resigned as Director at SCL Group Limited.
On December 20, 2007, Wheatland was appointed as a director at SCL Group Limited.
On December 1, 2008, Geoffrey Pattie resigned as Director at SCL Group Limited.
A few years later, the organisation SCL Social was founded as a non-profit humanitarian psychological warfare organisation.
In 2010, Nix visited the United States to learn about the consulting industry in American politics, but left dejected.s
The same year, Wikistrat was founded by Joel Zamel and Daniel Green in Israel. It later relocated to Washington, DC. John Hannah later became a member of the advisory council, as did David Shedd, Michael Hayden, Dennis Ross, Elliott Abrams, Sandra Charles, Steve Cambone and Jerry Brennan.
On August 23, 2010, Erik Prince gave a video deposition at the Hotel Rotana in Abu Dhabi, where Prince was asked about his relationship with George Nader.
VIDEOGRAPHER: “What about a man — excuse me. What about a man named George Nader? What did he do for you?”
ERIK PRINCE: “He was a — kind of a business development consultant that we retained in Iraq for a while.”
At some stage, one of Zamel’s firms worked with both Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who hired the firm for psychological campaigns against their business rivals.
In 2012, Farage and Bannon met each other. The same year, Kaiser met Nix for the first time at a sushi restaurant with Mongolian clients, although Kaiser refused to join the company at the time.
In February 2012, Nix and his girlfriend, Caroline Paus, bought a home in West London for £4.5 million.
On December 7, 2012, Nix resigned as Director at SCL Group Limited.
In 2013, SCL Elections spun off to found Cambridge Analytica in the United States, to which Stephen Bannon would later sit on the board. Around this time, Robert and Rebekah Mercer entered discussions with Nix and Christopher Wylie for an acquisition —having been introduced to the company by Bannon — while SCL was retained by numerous officials from Trinidad and Tobago, which led to AggregateIQ being brought in to assist. The Trinidad Project also had Wylie, Thomas Borwick and Mark Gettleson working on it.
In January 2013, a former intern of SCL Elections was contacted by Nix, where they discussed Palantir as a method to extract data.
In the autumn of 2013, Wylie met Bannon.
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica was approached by Cambridge University psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, where Kogan suggested data collection on Facebook users.
On March 31, 2014, Bottomley resigned as Company Secretary at SCL Group Limited, as he was replaced with Alexander Oakes.
On June 4, 2014, SCL entered into a commercial arrangement with Global Science Research.
On July 17, 2014, Nix sent an e-mail to Wylie and said that Cambridge Analytica had been asked to write a memo to Lukoil to offer their services.
After July 27, 2014, Wylie left Cambridge Analytica.
In late 2014, Royi Burstien founded the organisation Psy-Group, which would later be owned by Zamel and the organisation Ioco in Cyprus, of which Zamel was once a director.
In December 2014, SCL Elections was hired for the campaign of Goodluck Jonathan. The same month, Kaiser signed on with Cambridge Analytica as a special adviser.
In 2015, SCL Group acquired a $750,000.00 contract to assist NATO states counter Russian propaganda in Eastern Europe. Around this time, Wikistrat was contracted by the United Arab Emirates to simulate war games on Islamist political movements in Yemen. Kaiser also became a permanent employee at Cambridge Analytica.
On January 6, 2015, SCL USA Limited (which would later be renamed to Cambridge Analytica) was founded by Alexander Nix. The firm was also financially supported by Robert Mercer.
Cambridge Analytica worked with and paid researchers at Cambridge University to harvest psychological profiles of American Facebook users through the use of an online survey, more specifically from the Cambridge University Psychometrics Center.
Before February 2015, Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign entered a working relationship with Cambridge Analytica, which totalled over $5.8 million in services. The organisation set up operations in Senator Cruz’s campaign headquarters in Houston, TX, and worked closely with Chris Wilson.
Cambridge Analytica also entered a working relationship with the campaign of Ben Carson, which paid a total of $220,000.00.
Around this time, Cambridge Analytica also pursued business relationships with Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Chris Christie. Jeb Bush also visited the offices of Cambridge Analytica and met with Nix directly in London.
On March 23, 2015, Senator Cruz announced his intention to run as a Republican Party candidate in the 2016 United States presidential election.
In the summer of 2015, Cambridge Analytica hosted an office party at a London dog track, which was then uploaded to YouTube.
Around June 2015, Zamel reached out to Michael Flynn — having been introduced to Flynn by Bijan Kian — in an attempt to add Flynn to Wikistrat’s advisory board, which led a conversation about the subject. Zamel would also be introduced to various Pentagon officials by Adam Lovinger, a Pentagon strategist and an associate of the Flynn Intel Group, after a Navy Commander brought Zamel to the Office of Net Assessment.
“‘Joel Zamel has never met Michael Flynn,’ Zamel’s attorney, Marc Mukasey, told The Daily Beast via telephone. Asked about Zamel’s relationship with Kian, Mukasey hung up.” — The Daily Beast
On July 7, 2015, Kenneth Vogel and Tarini Patel published the article “Cruz partners with donor’s ‘psychographic’ firm” in Politico, which revealed the existence of Cambridge Analytica’s relationship with the 2016 United States presidential campaign.
In the fall of 2015, the offices of Cambridge Analytica were relocated from Washington, DC to Alexandria.
On October 24, 2015, Banks sent an e-mail to Wigmore, Liz Bilney, Tice, Bannon and [REDACTED], where he requested for Wigmore to work with Cambridge Analytica on fund raising.
On November 2, 2015, Julian Wheatland sent an e-mail to a number of people, Wigmore, Nix and Bannon, with a proposal of support for the Leave.EU campaign.
On November 12, 2015, Sasha Issenberg published the article “Cruz-Connected Data Miner Aims to Get Inside U.S. Voters’ Heads” in Bloomberg.
On November 16, 2015, Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko invited Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore to the Russian Embassy in London.
The next day, on November 17, 2015, Leave.EU hosted its launch event, which was attended by Brittany Kaiser.
On Wednesday, November 18, 2015, Banks and Wigmore visited the Russian Embassy and met with Ambassador Yakovenko, who introduced the two to a Russian businessman, where they discussed the opportunity to purchase six Russian gold firms to merge into one entity.
On November 24, 2015, an employee at Cambridge Analytica sent an e-mail to an employee of the Leave.EU campaign and Bilney for the data of people that signed to Leave.EU’s website.
On December 8, 2015, Ben Carson announced his National Security and Foreign Policy Advisory Committee for his presidential campaign, which featured both George Papadopoulos and George Birnbaum.
On December 11, 2015, Harry Davies published the article “Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users” in The Guardian. At this point, the Cruz campaign had paid Cambridge Analytica a total of $750,000.00.
In 2016, the organisation SCL Insight was founded, which had Gabb as a director.
On January 28, 2016, Alexander Oakes resigned as Company Secretary and Director at SCL Group Limited. On the same day, Nix was appointed as a Director of SCL Group.
On Friday, January 29, 2016, Arron Banks, Ranja Abbott, Caroline Drewett, Richard Tice and Maria Ming were appointed as Directors at Leave.EU, although Ming then resigned on the same day.
Before February 2016, Leave.EU entered a working relationship with Cambridge Analytica.
In February 2016, Banks and Wigmore travelled to Moscow to meet with partners and financiers behind a gold project, which included a Russian bank.
Around this time, Wigmore met with Jared Kushner and Jason Miller, who recommended artificial intelligence usage. The Leave campaign was also separately introduced to Cambridge Analytica by Robert Mercer, who is friends with Nigel Farage.
On February 8, 2016, Dawn Williams was appointed as the Company Secretary at Leave.EU.
Two days later, on February 10, 2016, Alexander Nix published the article “How big data got the better of Donald Trump” in Campaign.
A few days later, on February 15, 2016, TheKnow.EU officially changed its name to Leave.EU.
Around February — March 2016, a Republican consultant with ties to the Israeli Government pointed Psy-Group to Rick Gates.
In March 2016, George Birnbaum requested the e-mail address of Rick Gates from Eckart Sager — a mutual associate — to pitch the organisation Psy-Group to him. During this time, Birnbaum worked with numerous Psy-Group employees on “Project Rome” to refine proposals for the Trump campaign. Psy-Group hired the law firm Covington & Burlingh to legally review the proposal.
A few days after being hired by the Trump campaign with Paul Manafort, Gates and Birnbaum met with each other at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Washington, DC, where they discussed Joel Zamel and Psy-Group as a potential way of swaying Republican delegates.
On March 2, 2016, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond stated during a speech at Chatham House that the only country interested in the United Kingdom leaving the European Union would be Russia.
On March 4, 2016, Ben Carson officially ended his presidential campaign.
On Friday, March 11, 2016, the Russian Embassy in London published a press release, which condemned the British Government’s efforts to lace the Brexit vote with Russian interests. An employee of Leave.EU then sent an e-mail to Banks and Wigmore, where it was suggested to publish a statement of support for the Russian Embassy’s condemnation of the British Government’s stance, although Wigmore said they should contact Ambassador Yakovenko.
In April 2016, Birnbaum drafted his first document to refine proposals that would then be presented to the Trump campaign for social media manipulation. Part of the proposal featured social media messages targeted at criticising Senator Ted Cruz.
On April 14, 2016, SCL USA Limited officially renamed itself to Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited.
Around this time, Nix met with Brad Parscale and convinced him to use Cambridge Analytica as part of the Trump campaign.
In May 2016, Rick Gates agreed to work with the Trump campaign’s correspondence coordinator to prevent people from arranging meetings with Russians moving forward.
In early May 2016, Zamel sent an e-mail to Newt Gingrich, where he offered Psy-Group’s services to the Trump campaign, and offered to meet in Washington, DC. Gingrich forwarded the e-mail to Jared Kushner, and Kushner inquired with numerous Trump campaign officials, including Brad Parscale — Parscale said they did not need Zamel.
In the summer of 2016, Bannon left his position as Vice President of the Board at Cambridge Analytica.
In June 2016, both Zamel and Nader attended an international economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russia separately, as Zamel later approached Nader to request a meeting — having been introduced to Nader by John Hannah — as he wanted to assist with the Trump campaign financially. Nader, at the time, represented Crown Prince Mohammed as a confidential emissary.
On June 24, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, with Leave winning with 52% of the vote.
On July 17, 2016, Banks tweeted: “I’m buying gold at the moment & big mining stocks …”
“‘So what?’ Banks shrugged. He took a look, he said. He’s a businessman, after all. He has a stake in diamond mines in South Africa and a uranium mine in Niger. But, he insists, he didn’t do any deals with the Russians — no gold, no diamonds.” — The Washington Post
Around July 20, 2016, George Nader started to inquire on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan about potential ways to support Trump.
On July 22, 2016, George Cottrell was arrested at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, IL by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for blackmail and money laundering while he attempted to return to London with Farage.
On July 29, 2016, the Trump campaign started to pay funds to Cambridge Analytica.
In the summer of 2016, Isabel Oakeshott was granted access to Banks’ e-mails to assist in her ghostwriting of the book, “The Bad Boys of Brexit”.
“I can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica [prior to November last year] and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks.” — Julian Assange, October 25, 2017
In August 2016, Wigmore may have sent an e-mail to a contact at the Russian Embassy in London, which contained legal documentation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s indictment surrounding George Cottrell.
The same month, lawyers for Facebook wrote a letter to Wylie and informed him that the data used by Cambridsge Analytica had been gained illicitly and that Global Science Research should not have access to it.
Nix also sent an e-mail to multiple people, including Rebekah Mercer, where he stated he had sent an e-mail to Julian Assange in August 2016 to seek access to the e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s private server to turn it into a searchable database for the Trump campaign.
On August 3, 2016, at 04:00 P.M., Nader and Zamel visited a Manhattan hotel, when Nader was contacted via telephone by Prince to visit Trump Tower. Nader and Zamel then met with Donald Trump Jr. and Stephen Miller at Trump Tower for 30 minutes. The conversation was about Psy-Group, and Nader offered Trump. Jr to meet with a Saudi Arabian prince, but ultimately both did not progress further.
In mid-August 2016, Alex van der Zwaan sent a text message to Gates.
On August 15, 2016, Hillary For America issued out an e-mail titled “Trump Owes Americans Answers on Troubling Ties to Pro-Kremlin Forces”, which featured the names of people such as Gates, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Michael Caputo, Richard Burt, Howard Lorber and Boris Epshteyn.
The next day, on August 16, 2016, Gates was interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he provided misleading information on his interactions with Mercury back in 2012.
On August 17, 2016, Trump named Bannon as the Chief Executive of the Trump campaign.
On August 19, 2016, Ambassador Yakovenko met with both Banks and Wigmore.
On August 24, 2016, Trump and Farage met each other for the first time at the Jackson Convention Complex in Jackson, MS. This was followed with Trump, Governor Phil Bryant, Senator Jeff Sessions and Farage giving remarks at the Mississippi Coliseum, with Rudy Giuliani in attendance.
In September 2016, van der Zwaan contacted Gates over work that they did together for the Party of Regions. In the same month, the United States Department of Justice informed Gates, Manafort and Davis-Manafort International that it sought to determine whether they had acted as agents of a foreign principal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act without registering.
The same month, Nix attended the Concordia Summit in New York, where he hosted a presentation about Cambridge Analytica’s work in the United States.
From around October 2016, Nader became more closely tied to the Trump campaign, as he met with Kushner, Flynn and Bannon on various occassions.
After November 8, 2016, Nader paid Zamel almost $2 million. Hannah also became a member of the transition team for the United States Department of State.
On November 18, 2016, Jonathan Albright published the article “The #Election2016 Micro-Propaganda Machine” in Medium.
On November 23, 2016, Manafort, Gates and Manafort-Davis International caused false and misleading letters to be sent to the United States Department of Justice.
In December 2016, Nader purchased a presentation which demonstrated social media’s impact on President-elect Trump’s electoral victory through an organisation named WhiteKnight. Around the same time, Carole Cadwalladr started to do searches on Google using the auto complete option.
On December 3, 2016, Paul Wood published the article “The British data-crunchers who say they helped Donald Trump to win” in The Spectator.
On December 4, 2016, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “Google, democracy and the truth about internet search” in The Guardian. For the article, Cadwalladr was introduced to Cambridge Analytica by Albright.
On December 12, 2016, the Trump campaign finished paying funds to Cambridge Analytica, totalling $5.9 million.
On December 13, 2016, Matt Oczkowski attended a panel hosted by Google, where he informed people that the Trump campaign did not use psychographics to assist the campaign.
“I don’t want to break your heart; we actually didn’t do any psychographics with the Trump campaign.” — Matt Oczkowski
On December 14, 2016, Psy-Group and Cambridge Analytica signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on intelligence and social media services, which was apparently done without Zamel’s involvement.
Before December 15, 2016, United States border agents in the United Arab Emirates discovered Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nayhan’s name on a flight manifest from the United Arab Emirates to New York, NY.
On December 15, 2016, Sheikh al-Nahyan met with Lt. Gen. Flynn, Kushner and Bannon at Trump Tower, although Nader either attended the meeting or he greeted Emirati officials as they departed.
“Then on December 15, 2016, Kushner, Flynn, and Bannon secretly met at Trump Tower with Nader and MBZ. That meeting, which the crown prince did not give advance notice about to the Obama administration, set off red flags with national security officials at the time. It was also one of several meetings with foreign officials that Kushner failed to disclose on his security clearance request form.” — New York Magazine
“Mr. Zamel asked his contacts whether they were close to top officials in the coming White House, according to the person close to Wikistrat. In December 2016, when Mr. Zayed met with Trump transition officials in New York, Mr. Nader didn’t attend the meeting but greeted Emirati officials as they were departing, according to a person familiar with the interaction.” — The Wall Street Journal
After December 15, 2016, Susan Rice unmasked the identities of the Trump transition team members who had met with Sheikh al-Nayhan on December 15.
Around January 2017, The Guardian received a letter, which stated that Cambridge Analytica was not employed by the Leave campaign.
In early January 2017, Nader also arranged a series of meetings over two days in New York between General Ahmed al-Assiri, Zamel and the Trump transition team, including Flynn and Bannon, where they discussed ending the Iranian regime.
After the New York meetings, less than one week later, Nader arranged and attended a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seychelles between Erik Prince and United Arab Emirates, and then later attended a meeting between Prince and Kirill Dmitriev. The meeting drew the interest of the American intelligence agencies in the final days of the Obama Administration.
On January 19, 2017, a black-tie Chairman’s Global Dinner was hosted for 500 guesats at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium as part of the Presidential Inauguration Committee’s events, where the guests were entertained by Las Vegas show girls. It was attended by Leonard Blavatnik, Alexander Shustorovich, Thomas Barrack, Jr., Steve Wynn, Carl Ichan, President-elect Trump’s campaign aides, foreign ambassadors and dignitaries. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Stephen Bannon and Alexander Nix were listed as invitees.
A Candlelight Dinner event was hosted at Union Station in Washington, DC as well, also a spart of the Presidential Inauguration Committee’s events, where guests were entertained by Jackie Evancho. This event was attended by Victor Vekselberg, Andrew Itrater, Michael Cohen and his family, Leonard Blavatnik, Alexander Mashkevitch, Thomas Barrack, Jr., Carl Ichan, Steve Wynn, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, with both Bannon and Nix listed as invitees.
Around January 20, 2017, Nader met with Elliott Broidy.
After January 20, 2017, Nader and Zamel visited the White House, where they met with Jared Kushner and Stephen Bannon to discuss a plan of economic sabotage against Iran. Elsewhere, Burstien visited numerous businesses in Washington, DC with a slide deck titled “Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Campaign — Analysis”.
In February 2017, Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian started her investigation into both Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU. Carole met with Wigmore for coffee to discuss Farage’s visit to the United States for CPAC and, allegedly, about Farage’s speech being about closer relations to Russia.
The same month, the United States Department of State awarded SCL a $500,000.00 contract to provide target audience research.
On February 16, 2017, Cadwalladr used Google’s auto complete search to try and find information about Trump and his war with the mainstream media, after she searched Twitter and found both anti- and pro-Trump sentiments over his declaration that CNN was fake news, which led to her finding information about Robert Mercer.
On February 17, 2017, Kaiser visited the Ecuadorean Embassy to meet with Assange to discuss Assange’s current situation for 20 minutes.
“@carolecadwalla This report is false. WikiLeaks has no knowledge of donations from either party mentioned, did not have a meeting to discuss the US election and was not approached by Murtfeld or anyone connected to him.” — WikiLeaks, June 6, 2018
“Most of the time he was speaking at me. He talked about the upcoming change in government in Ecuador and how he was worried about that. He talked about the implications of the change in government in the US. We never at any point discussed business.” — Brittany Kaiser
On February 26, 2017, Carole Cadwalladr — with contributions from Paul-Olivier Dehaye — published the article “Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media” in The Guardian.
After February 26, 2017, the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner’s Office both opened investigations into Cambridge Analytica.
In the spring of 2017, Nader visited Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and met with military and intelligence officials to discuss the same Iranian economic sabotage plan from January 2017.
On March 1, 2017, Psy-Group celebrated their new office in Washington, DC with a cocktail reception at Old Ebbitt Grill, which was attended by Mark Irion, Kirsten Fontenrose, Kevin Cowl, Demetrios Karoutsos, Matt McMillan, Megan Wilson, Dan Wagner, Royi Burstien and Scott Mortman.
After March 29, 2017, Cadwalladr met with a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, “Paul”, who redirected Cadwalladr to Christopher Wylie, who introduced AggregateIQ to Cambridge Analytica.
On April 12, 2017, the United States Office of Government Ethics approved the sale of Bannon’s holdings in Cambridge Analytica.
On April 21, 2017, the Electoral Commission opened an investigation into Leave.EU’s spending during the 2016 European Union referendum campaign due to their work with Cambridge Analytica.
On April 25, 2017, Bill Allison published the article “Bannon Gets Approval to Sell Holdings in Data and Film Companies” in Bloomberg.
Before May 7, 2017, Cadwalladr located Christopher Wylie, at the time in Canada, who refused to discuss Cambridge Analytica, although he did provide evidence about his time there.
On May 7, 2017, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked” in The Guardian.
On May 23, 2017, Caroline Drewett resigned as Director at Leave.EU.
Two days later, on May 25, 2017, Richard Tice resigned as Director at Leave.EU.
On June 1, 2017, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Nick Hopkins and Luke Harding published the article “Nigel Farage is ‘person of interest’ in FBI investigation into Trump and Russia” in The Guardian.
On October 6, 2017, Broidy sent a detailed memorandum to Nader through an encrypted e-mail address about his meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office about his advocacy on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
On October 25, 2017, Betsy Woodruff published the article “Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried to Team Up With Julian Assange” in The Daily Beast. Later, Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen — with contributions from Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb — published the article “Trump campaign analytics company contacted WikiLeaks about Clinton emails” in CNN.
In November 2017, an undercover reporter at Channel 4 started to meet with Cambridge Analytica officials, including Nix, Mark Turnbull and Dr. Alex Taylor, for an exposé.
On November 29, 2017, John Hannah published the article “Two Cheers for Rex” in Foreign Policy.
On December 14, 2017, Nix testified before the House Intelligence Committee in relation to Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election.
In 2018, Elad Schaffer replaced Zamel as the Chief Executive Officer of Wikistrat.
In January 2018, the undercover reporter at Channel 4 completed their recordings for the undercover exposé on Cambridge Analytica. The same month, Nader was stopped by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Dulles International Airport, where he was served with a grand jury subpoena. Around this time, Cadwalladr started to speak with Wylie over the phone more often.
In February 2018, Nader started to cooperate with the Mueller investigation — with Kathryn Ruemmler representing him — about the meeting in Seychelles from January 2017 and his interactions with the Trump campaign and Zamel, and was then granted immunity. Around this time, reporters at The New York Times contacted Nader to discuss, but he claimed to have dinner guests and stopped speaking with them.
Team Mueller also stopped Zamel at Reagan National Airport and briefly seized his electronic devices. Burstien, meanwhile, found he was unable to pay his employees. Zamel would later decide to close down Psy-Group.
Between February 26, 2018 to March 4, 2018, Nader gave his testimony to a grand jury in relation to the Mueller investigation.
On February 27, 2018, Nix was questioned by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee about fake news.
In March 2018, Nader fled the United States and flew back to the United Arab Emirates.
The same month, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation served Zamel with a grand jury subpoena. Agents also found Burstien in San Francisco, CA, where they left a note for him underneath his hotel room door to request an interview with him, and also visited the Washington, DC office of Psy-Group.
Around this time, employees at Psy-Group were interviewed by Team Mueller, specifically in relation to potential FARA violations, although the employees provided letters from various law firms to prove their legality. Team Mueller had sent investigators to Washington, DC, New York, Atlanta, Tel Aviv (at least two agents) and various other locations. Team Mueller also asked about the organisation Wikistrat, Zamel and Daniel Green.
At some point, Zamel met with Team Mueller informally, where he was questioned about his relationship with Nader and his own work.
Between March 5–11, 2018, Brittany Kaiser left the organisation Cambridge Analytica.
On March 15, 2018, Bradley Klapper and Karel Janicek published the article “Nader, Mueller’s latest cooperator, a convicted pedophile” in The Washington Post.
The next day, on March 16, 2018, Cambridge Analytica was suspended from Facebook.
On March 17, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr met with Christopher Wylie, who discussed his time at Cambridge Analytica. Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison also published the article “Cambridge Analytica: links to Moscow oil firm and St Petersburg university” in The Guardian.
On March 18, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower” in The Guardian, which was about Christopher Wylie.
The next day, on March 19, 2018, Channel 4 published the article “Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians”. Nix was then interviewed by BBC Newsnight.
The next day, on March 20, 2018, Cambridge Analytica suspended Nix as Chief Executive Officer, as he was replaced with Alexander Tayler acting as Acting Chief Executive.
On March 21, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr — with contributions from Ann Marlowe — published the article “Cambridge Analytica’s ruthless bid to sway the vote in Nigeria” in The Guardian.
On March 23, 2018, Paul Lewis and Paul Hilder published the article “Former Cambridge Analytica exec says she wants lies to stop” in The Guardian, which was about Brittany Kaiser. Elsewhere, the Information Commissioner’s Office was granted a warrant to search the files and servers of Cambridge Analytica’s London office, where investigators remained for 7 hours.
On March 27, 2018, William Booth and Karla Adam — with contributions from Craig Timberg — published the article “Cambridge Analytica’s Alexander Nix: Bond villain, tech genius or hustler?” in The Washington Post. The same day, Wylie gave his testimony to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
On March 28, 2018, Roger Gabb resigned from SCL Group.
On April 2, 2018, Byron Tau, Rebecca Ballhaus and Aruna Viswanatha published the article “Mueller Probe Into U.A.E. Influence Broadens” in The Wall Street Journal.
On April 17, 2018, Brittany Kaiser was questioned by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee as part of the inquiry into fake news.
In late April 2018, Kaiser met with Marin Cogan of Elle for an interview at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC, at a time where Netflix recorded her for a documentary.
On April 30, 2018, Nix resigned as Chief Executive Officer at Cambridge Analytica, as he was replaced with Julian Wheatland. Nix also resigned from SCL Group Limited.
On May 10, 2018, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued formal summons for Nix and Dominic Cummings.
On May 17, 2018, Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group made a Chapter 7 filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court in New York.
On May 19, 2018, Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and David D. Kirkpatrick — with contributions from Maggie Haberman — published the article “Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election” in The New York Times.
On May 22, 2018, Ranja Abbott resigned as Director at Leave.EU.
The next day, on May 23, 2018, Byron Tau and Rebecca Ballhaus published the article “Israeli Intelligence Company Formed Venture With Trump Campaign Firm Cambridge Analytica” in The Wall Street Journal.
On June 4, 2018, Ken Klippenstein published the article “Inside Wikistrat, the Mysterious Intelligence Firm Now in Mueller’s Sights” in The Daily Beast.
On June 5, 2018, Nigel Oakes resigned from SCL Group Limited.
On June 6, 2018, Nix testified before Members of Parliament at the House of Parliament about Cambridge Analytica, which was attended by Cadwalladr, who then later reviewed information shown by Peter Jukes of campaign material into Leave.EU’s relationship with Russia.
On June 7, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr and Stephanie Kirchgaessner published the article “Cambridge Analytica director ‘met Assange to discuss US election’” in The Guardian, which was about Kaiser.
One day later, on June 8, 2018, Isabel Oakeshott discovered that Cadwalladr and Jukes planned to publish an article for The Guardian surrounding Banks’ relationship with Russia for the next day. At 11:57 A.M., Cadwalladr sent an e-mail to Banks to inform him that The Guardian had acquired his e-mails about Russia. At 10:30 P.M., Banks e-mailed Cadwalladr in response, where he stated he was out of the office and would not respond until June 11, 2018.
On June 9, 2018, Oakeshott contacted Cadwalladr, where she accused The Guardian of hacking her e-mails, then later changed her tone to try and delay Cadwalladr and Jukes’s article. The same day, Richard Kerbaj, Caroline Wheeler, Tim Shipman and Tom Harper published the article “Exclusive: Emails reveal Russian links of millionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks” in The Sunday Times, while Cadwalladr and Jukes published “Arron Banks ‘met Russian officials multiple times before Brexit vote’” in The Guardian.
On June 10, 2018, Nico Hines published the article “How a Journalist Kept Russia’s Secret Links to Brexit Under Wraps” in The Daily Beast, which wass about Oakeshott.
The next day, on June 11, 2018, Banks published the article “The target of these nonsense Russian allegations isn’t me — it’s the vote to leave the EU” in The Telegraph.
On June 12, 2018, Banks testified before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which he later walked out on.
On June 16, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “Arron Banks, Brexit and the Russia connection” in The Guardian.
On June 19, 2018, Marin Cogan published the article “Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Brittany Kaiser Is Out to Clear Her Name” in Elle.
Between June 25–30, 2018, Banks met with William Booth and Karla Adam from The Washington Post on two separate occasions, with one occasion being attended by Wigmore.
On June 30, 2018, William Booth and Karla Adam published the article “Arron Banks: The brash British millionaire who backed Brexit, befriended the Russian ambassador and loves Trump” in The Washington Post.
On July 8, 2018, Carole Cadwalladr and Peter Jukes published the article “Revealed: Leave.EU campaign met Russian officials as many as 11 times” in The Guardian.
On October 8, 2018, Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman, David D. Kirkpatrick and Maggie Haberman published the article “Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign” in The New York Times.
On October 25, 2018, Erin Banco and Betsy Woodruff — with contributions from Asawin Suebsaeng — published the article “Saudi Spy Met With Team Trump About Taking Down Iran” in The Daily Beast.
On November 16, 2018, Erin Banco and Betsy Woodruff published the article “Top Cheney Aide in Mueller’s Sights as Probe Expands” in The Daily Beast, which discussed John Hannah.
On February 17, 2019, Carole Cadwalladr published the article “Mueller questions Cambridge Analytica director Britanny Kaiser” in The Guardian.
On February 18, 2019, Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow published the article “Private Mossad For Hire” in The New Yorker.
