S.A. web firm might be included in probe of the...

WASHINGTON — The FBI’s wide-ranging criminal investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election may include scrutiny of the Trump campaign’s San Antonio-based digital operation overseen by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner.

CNN reported that along with Kushner’s contacts with Russians and his relationship with fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, the FBI is looking at the campaign’s 2016 data analytics programs conducted largely out of San Antonio under the direction of local digital advertising executive Brad Parscale.

In looking at possible ties with Russia, the FBI has collected data on computer bots — software that runs automated scripts over the internet — that pushed negative information on Hillary Clinton and positive information on Trump, the cable network reported.

An FBI spokesman declined comment Friday, and the White House did not respond to messages.

Parscale did not respond to phone messages left at Giles-Parscale, the San Antonio web design and digital marketing company that he co-owns.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has not been accused of wrongdoing. His lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said he will cooperate with the FBI if asked.

“Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings,” she said in a statement, referring to reports of meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and with a Russian banker. “He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry.”

Parscale, 41, became heavily involved in the Trump campaign after designing a website for the campaign exploratory committee and carrying out other tasks for the Trump family. He worked under Kushner. By the campaign’s end, Parscale ran Trump’s digital operation, media buys and overall advertising, an exceptionally large role for someone with little experience in political campaigns.

“It was a data-driven campaign, so I was in the middle of it all,” Parscale said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News after the election.

Federal Election Commission reports showed that Giles-Parscale received over $91 million from the Trump campaign and an allied super PAC over an 18-month period.

Parscale noted that while his company ended “in a healthy situation,” much of that money was paid for advertising and vendors.

Parscale remained on the campaign payroll through January and is associated with Trump’s re-election committee. FEC records show that his company received an additional $1.6 million through March for what was described as digital consultation and online advertising.

In the “Project Alamo” operation, Parscale had over 100 people employed on Trump’s behalf last year in San Antonio, many of them digital and media experts.

They worked closely with the Republican National Committee, which invested heavily in data and digital technology after losing the previous two presidential elections. The RNC provided the Trump campaign with a massive database that included details on millions of voters’ attitudes, buying habits and personal information available from public and private sources, combined with information the party had gleaned from contacts over the years.

The Parscale-run operation relied heavily on Facebook both for targeting voters and fundraising, Parscale has said, noting that Facebook helped the campaign raise more than

$260 million.

Along with RNC operatives dispatched to San Antonio, the operation employed staff from Cambridge Analytica, the U.S.-based offshoot of a British company that deploys what it calls “psychographics,” research using personality, values and other voter traits for targeting.

Cambridge was paid $6 million for its work, which Republican operatives described as voter persuasion.

BusinessWeek quoted an unnamed member of the Trump campaign staff late in the campaign as saying that their digital operation used Facebook ads and other means to suppress Clinton’s vote totals with negative messages aimed at African-Americans, young women and segments of liberals.

Parscale said in an earlier interview with the Express-News that his operation’s ability to identify 14.4 million persuadable voters in several swing states just prior to the election was a key to Trump’s victory.

“That’s why we won. We knew just the voters we needed to turn out, and we turned them out in big numbers,” he said.

Parscale’s success earned him the Digital Strategist of the Year Award, presented in March by the American Association of Political Consultants.

While not commenting on the report about FBI scrutiny of Kushner, Parscale has used his Twitter account in recent days to step up attacks on CNN and other news outlets with more than a dozen posts since last weekend.

“SO fake news,” Parscale tweeted May 20 in response to a CNN report that a former Trump staffer wants the president to set up a fund to help associates caught in the Russia investigation pay their legal bills. “Let’s fight back against @CNN.”

In another tweet that day, he wrote: “#1 lesson I’ve learned. Media is the enemy of this country.”

blambrecht@express-news.net