DATA BENEFICIARY

John Bolton’s Super PAC Hired Cambridge Analytica

Christopher Wylie claims the PAC knew his firm was using personal Facebook data in its work.

John Bolton’s political action committee hired Cambridge Analytica in 2014—and allegedly knew the company was using Facebook data to do its work, according to The New York Times. The John Bolton Super PAC reportedly spent about $1.2 million in two years mainly for “survey research” and “behavioral microtargeting with psychographic messaging,” according to campaign finance information and a contract obtained by the Times. “The data and modeling Bolton’s PAC received was derived from the Facebook data...We definitely told them about how we were doing it. We talked about it in conference calls, in meetings,” said Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica co-founder who recently blew the whistle on the firm's misuse of personal data from Facebook users. Wylie also said that Bolton’s PAC was “obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed and spineless,” and claimed it wanted “research and messaging for national security issues [which] really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview.”