Wednesday, March 21, 2018

JUDICIARY: RANKING MEMBER NADLER LETTER TO GOODLATTE CONDEMNING “APPLAUSE” OF TRUMP ATTACKS ON DOJ & DEMANDING CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA BE BROUGHT IN FOR IMMEDIATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEARING


Nadler to Goodlatte: “Your applause validates the President’s worst instincts.”

Washington, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) sent a letter, below, to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), urging him to investigate attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigators, and to call in Christopher Wylie, a whistleblower who helped found Cambridge Analytica, the Trump Campaign data firm that acquired the personal information of millions of U.S. Facebook users.

In his letter, Ranking Member Nadler condemned Goodlatte for applauding the firing of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, noting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s (IG) review of the Department’s handling of the Clinton investigation is still ongoing, the DOJ IG has not produced a report, and that the House Judiciary Committee has not read the findings of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility’s review of McCabe:“As you know, President Trump has used Mr. McCabe as a political foil in his effort to undermine the leadership of the FBI and the Department of Justice. I was not surprised when President Trump took to Twitter to gloat...I was surprised, however, that you joined President Trump in “applaud[ing]” the Attorney General’s decision…”

Ranking Member Nadler called on Goodlatte to protect the Department of Justice from political influence, warning that Goodlatte applauding McCabe’s firing “validates the President’s worst instincts.” Nadler, instead, urged Goodlatte to focus on oversight by calling in Cambridge Analytica founder, Christopher Wylie, for a hearing:  “I write to request a hearing on the alleged theft of U.S. person user information, the use of that information in the 2016 presidential campaign, and the continued security risk that information poses in the hands of Cambridge Analytica and its associates.  Each of these issues falls squarely within the Committee’s jurisdiction.  At the very least, I ask that we invite Mr. Wylie to appear before the Committee for a transcribed interview.”

Reports have stated that Cambridge Analytica and possibly other members of the Trump data operations team actively solicited Wikileaks -- a known hostile foreign intelligence actor -- to acquire stolen information. Cambridge Analytica also appears to have business connections to the Russian government.
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