A former Cambridge Analytica employee turned whistleblower has said that contrary to numerous denials, Malta’s cash-for-passports concessionaires Henley and Partners “were often inside” the political consulting firm.
In a tweet, Portuguese socialist MEP Ana Gomes said that the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told her that the two companies were linked, adding that this was “quite different” from what Henley and Partners chief Christian Kalin told MEPs.
Wylie was the former director of research at Cambridge Analytica.
@ hearing I asked abt impact of relation btw CambridgeAnalytica/SCL & Henley&Partners in sale of #EU passports schemes.
C.Wylie later told me H&P were often inside CA.
Quite different from what C.Kälin, of H&P, told MEPs inquiring on #Malta after #DaphneCaruanaGalizia murder! https://t.co/mTeiIh0mwH— Ana Gomes (@AnaMartinsGomes) June 4, 2018
In a video conference Henley and Partners had with the European Parliament’s delegation investigating the rule of law in Malta in March, representatives of the cash-for-passports concessionaires said they had no involvement in Maltese elections with Cambridge Analytica.
“We reached out to Cambridge Analytica after an article was published on the work they were doing in the US elections, to see whether they could help us reach clients in North America. But it did not lead to anything,” Henley and Partners told MEPs.
Wylie disclosed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from millions of Facebook users which were then used in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to target voters and manipulate public opinion.
British political magazine The Spectator interviewed a source who worked for Cambridge Analytica’s mother company, SCL Elections up to 2010.
The source had said Kalin and Cambridge Analytica’s former CEO Alexander Nix coordinated funding and electoral works for politicians in the Caribbean who would then engage Henley and Partners to run their passport selling schemes.
A British MP has linked Cambridge Analytica to Henley and Partners, calling for more investigations.
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Nix was being accused of withdrawing more than $8m (€7.5m) from Cambridge Analytica before it collapsed.