Report: Trump campaign data firm contacted Julian Assange about Clinton emails

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last updated 26 October 2017

In an email he wrote last year, Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics firm hired by President Trump's campaign, said he had contacted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about how he could help WikiLeaks release some of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, The Daily Beast reports.

Two people familiar with the congressional investigation into ties between Trump associates and the Russian government told The Daily Beast that Nix wrote this email to a third party, and revealed that Assange told him he did not want his help because he liked to do his work solo. If Nix's claims are true, this is the closest known connection between Trump's campaign and Assange.

WikiLeaks published hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, and Trump was quick to praise the site throughout the campaign; PolitiFact says he mentioned WikiLeaks 137 times before the election. Cambridge Analytica did not respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment, but Assange did, saying, "We can confirm an approach by Cambridge Analytica and can confirm that it was rejected by WikiLeaks." Clinton used a private server while secretary of state, and it's unclear if the 33,000 emails that were deleted were ever hacked or if anyone has them, a person close to the congressional investigation told The Daily Beast.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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