Trump strategist Steve Bannon apparently involved in talks despite being on board of Cambridge Analytica, which helped president-elect to victory

A data mining company that helped Donald Trump win the presidency is in early talks to snare two potentially lucrative new contracts, one to boost the incoming Trump White House’s policy messaging and the other to help the Trump Organization expand its sales, the Guardian has learned.

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Cambridge Analytica, a data company that uses personality profiling and boasts billionaire Trump backer Robert Mercer as a key investor, is in discussions about potential deals with the Trump Organization and Steve Bannon, the CEO of the campaign and now Trump’s senior counselor and chief strategist, according to a conservative digital strategist familiar with Cambridge. Despite his apparent role in the talks as a representative of Trump’s incoming White House team, Bannon is also on the board of Cambridge Analytica, the source said, an assertion also reported elsewhere. Mercer’s daughter Rebekah, who ran a pro-Trump Super Pac that plowed $2m into digital ads and other efforts backing Trump, and Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge, are playing lead roles in the talks with the Trump Organization and with Bannon, the digital source said.

Historically, the Republican National Committee has picked up the tab for White House communication and messaging consultants, which means that Bannon – who has said he will step down from his job as executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News when he starts his White House job – would have to get the RNC to approve such a deal.

Alternatively, there has been discussion about possibly creating an outside advocacy group that would focus on messaging and communications to support White House goals, which Cambridge might work for, according to the source.

The talks with the Trump Organization and Bannon underscore the rising influence of the reclusive Mercers as mega-donors on the right, and their tight ties to Trump’s inner circle. Rebekah Mercer, who oversees much of the family’s political philanthropy, is on the 16-person Trump transition executive committee.

If the deals in discussion come to fruition, some outside watchdogs say they could create new controversies over conflicts of interest for Trump.

“The web of potential conflicts between President Trump and the Trump Organization will only be made stronger and more difficult to untangle” if Cambridge winds up working for the president’s business interests and crafting messages to push the White House’s agenda, said Larry Noble, the general counsel for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

For both the Trump Organization, which has already been criticized for a visit to the president-elect by business partners from India, and for generating support for Trump’s policy goals, Cambridge Analytica could prove useful. The London-based company claims it has key marketing and psychological data on some 230 million Americans, information that might help increase the size and value of a real estate empire, or build backing for Trump’s policy agenda.

Cambridge’s data could be helpful in both “driving sales and driving policy goals”, said the digital source, adding: “Cambridge is positioned to be the preferred vendor for all of that.”



Cambridge and the Trump Organization both declined requests for comment. A spokesman for the Trump transition said Cambridge would not be working for the White House, but did not address whether it might work for the RNC or an outside group to help the new president.

The potential windfall for the company comes after the Mercers and Cambridge played key roles in Trump’s victory. Cambridge Analytica was tapped as a leading campaign data vendor as the Mercers, who originally backed Senator Ted Cruz in the presidential race, flexed their muscle after endorsing Trump. The Mercers reportedly pushed for the addition of a few top campaign aides, including Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, who became campaign manager. In September alone Cambridge was paid $5m by the Trump campaign for its services.

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Robert Mercer, his wife and his daughter have donated more than $40.1m to political committees and Super Pacs since the start of 2012 presidential election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. This year, the Mercers gave $13.5m to a pro-Cruz Super Pac run by Conway and then $2m to Make America Number 1, the pro-Trump Super Pac led by Rebekah Mercer.

Bannon and the Mercers have deep ties: Robert Mercer has reportedly donated $10m to Breitbart News. And this year, Bannon was in London at least once and met with Cambridge Analytica top brass, according to the digital source who noted that Bannon was on the company’s board. (Before Cambridge secured office space in Virginia it worked out of a Bannon office on Capitol Hill, the source said.)

Make America Number 1 paid Glittering Steel, a film company that Bannon heads which made an anti-Clinton film, $187,000 in October and November while Bannon served as Trump’s campaign CEO, unpaid.

“These payments appear to be clear evidence that the Super Pac was subsidizing Bannon’s work at the campaign,” the Campaign Legal Center’s Noble said. Super Pacs are not allowed to coordinate their spending with campaigns.