opinion

Montini: Kelli Ward’s million-dollar link to Cambridge Analytica

Republican Kelli Ward, who desperately wants Sen. Jeff Flake’s senate seat, is in deep to the same sleazy data mining firm that accessed the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users and, according to a British news report, was caught on tape outlining how it could nail politicians by way of bribes and Ukranian sex workers.

And you thought Ward’s kookiest association had to do with chemtrails.

This same firm, Cambridge Analytica, was used by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to “harvest” (as they say) the information from unwitting Facebook users and use it to influence voters. That's 50 million victims.

Was your information 'harvested?'

Maybe you.

Maybe me.

It turns out that the political candidate mostly likely to follow in the muddy footsteps of the Trump campaign is ... Kelli Ward.

According to Open Secrets, the political action committee supporting Ward's campaign, KelliPAC, paid Cambridge Analytica $450,000 in August.

And the connection doesn't end there.

This firm apparently was funded by big time Republican donor named Robert Mercer and the one-time White House insider and Trump pal Stephen Bannon.

According the British news report, an executive for Cambridge Analytica says one way they might get dirt on a politician is to “send some girls around to the candidate’s house.” He said Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful” and that he finds it “works very well.”

Nice.

Kelli Ward's (too) close connection

Not only did the billionaire Robert Mercer and his pal Steve Bannon fund Cambridge Analytica but Mercer also is responsible, in large part, for Kelli Ward.

According to a report on the KelliPAC website, Mercer donated $300,000 to the PAC this time around. Her website adds, “Mercer and his wife Diana donated $700,000 to this PAC in 2016 when Ward faced off against another Trump critic Sen. John McCain.”

Does that jibe with Ward's purported values?

According to her campaign website, Ward believes in “traditional principles and values.” She believes in “faith" and "love of God."

Does this fit in with family values?

How does that conform with Ward's supporting PAC taking a million dollars from a man who backed a firm that accessed the private information of more than 50 million Facebook users and boasts of using bribes and Ukranian sex workers to get politicians?

Should a families values candidate be in any way associated with a firm that operates that way?

Shouldn't that bother a believer of "traditional principles and values?"

Shouldn’t a person of faith, who lives in accordance with “traditional principles and values,” want to see that money returned?

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