WASHINGTON — In a Senate hearing Wednesday on data privacy and the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica, Sen. Ted Cruz downplayed its work for the Trump campaign and made no mention of his own campaign's use of the voter targeting firm, which is now reported to be under federal investigation.

Sidestepping whether the firm improperly used data from millions of Facebook users to help boost GOP candidates, the Texan repeated a contention that a biased Facebook had helped Democrat Barack Obama's chances long before Cambridge Analytica’s role in the 2016 election.

Americans are “rightly concerned about privacy and security of our data,” Cruz said, adding that while “much of the media attention in recent weeks and months has focused on the data operation of the Trump campaign,” it’s hardly the first to use data to reach voters.

Cruz pointed to Obama's highly touted use of social media in his presidential campaigns, a strategy that was developed using Facebook data. And he quoted a former Obama campaign official who tweeted in March that, with respect to data use, Facebook allowed the campaign "to do things they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

Campaigns across the political spectrum have long acquired and used data to motivate potential voters. Facebook has denied giving the Obama campaign special treatment and has said that he and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney "had access to the same tools."

This was the second hearing on data privacy in the last five weeks at which Cruz railed against bias in Silicon Valley and avoided mention of his own connection to Cambridge, a firm bankrolled by the billionaire GOP donor Robert Mercer. Cruz hired the firm for his 2016 presidential bid, which Mercer supported. After the Texan exited the race, Mercer and the firm switched allegiance to Trump.

Cambridge folded this month amid allegations that it had improperly acquired data on 87 million Facebook users with the goal of influencing the 2016 election. The firm has denied wrongdoing and said that it didn't use Facebook data in the contest.

The Cruz campaign has maintained that it was an honest broker in its dealings with Cambridge. Still, Texas Democrats pounced on the senator, who is up for re-election, for the omission.

"Ted Cruz didn't utter a word about his deep ties with Cambridge Analytica and how he spent millions to exploit users' personal data in a failed attempt to get you to like him. Just like Donald Trump, Ted Cruz has violated the public trust," the Texas Democratic Party's deputy executive director, Manny Garcia, said in a prepared statement.

Investigation

The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the FBI and Justice Department were investigating the firm's actions and financial dealings. Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge whistleblower, testified at Wednesday's hearing. Beforehand, he told reporters that the FBI had contacted him in relation to the probe.

Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said the senator’s campaign had not been contacted by federal authorities.

The Cruz presidential campaign — which boasted about its sophisticated voter-targeting ability — paid Cambridge Analytica $5.8 million between July 2015 and June 2016 for services that included "voter ID targeting," "voter modeling" and "survey research/donor modeling." Cambridge staffers were embedded with the campaign at its headquarters in Houston.

But campaign officials have long said that they found the firm's data and modeling unreliable and turned to other sources that have not been similarly tainted.

In March, Cruz aides denied any impropriety by the senator and his campaign, saying that when allegations first emerged in late 2015 that the firm had misused Facebook data, Cambridge assured them the claims were false.

Federal records show no sign of ties between any Cruz campaign and Cambridge since mid-2016.

Double standard?

The Cambridge scandal has drawn criticism of a double standard regarding the Obama and Trump campaigns' use of data to reach voters.

But experts say the difference is in how the Obama campaign and Cambridge accessed the Facebook data and their levels of transparency.

Cambridge, according to Facebook, acquired its data through a University of Cambridge psychology lecturer with ties to Russia who developed a personality prediction app and billed it as a “research app.” About 270,000 people downloaded the app, unaware that it would be used by a third party to harvest data on their friend networks and that the data would be transferred and used in political campaigns.

The Obama campaign also acquired data using a Facebook app, but with the stated purpose of supporting a political campaign, according to Politifact. That app "asked users' permission" to scan their photos or friends lists.

But critics have pointed out that the friends of the users would not have known the data was being shared.

Allegations of bias

Cruz has previously alleged bias and political censorship by Facebook and other tech companies, a concern he renewed on Wednesday.

At an April Senate hearing with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cruz cited examples of alleged suppression of conservative voices, including labeling the Facebook page of pro-Trump social media personalities "Diamond" and "Silk," sisters from North Carolina, as "unsafe."

Zuckerberg said he understood the "concern" over bias, as many tech companies are based in the left-leaning Silicon Valley.

“Facebook and other social media companies are now the vehicle through which some 70 percent of Americans get their political news," Cruz said at Wednesday's hearing, "and so the specter of censorship, I think, is a profound threat to liberty.”