Facebook Is Said to Agree to Brief House Panel on Misuse of Data

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. officials have tentatively agreed to brief House Judiciary Committee members as soon as Wednesday on the use of personal data of millions of their users by a firm hired as a consultant to President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, according to a congressional official familiar with the discussions.

Details are still being worked out about how and when such a briefing would take place, as well as who would appear from the company, according to the official, who asked for anonymity because the discussions aren’t public.

Democrats on the committee are demanding that Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, schedule a hearing on revelations that the company Cambridge Analytica exploited information from millions of Facebook users without their permission.

In a letter to Goodlatte, top Judiciary Committee Democrat Jerrold Nadler of New York said that neither Alexander Nix, the chief executive officer of Cambridge Analytica, nor Brad Parscale -- who ran the 2016 Trump campaign’s digital operations and has been named Trump’s campaign manager for 2020 -- have responded to Democratic requests for information.

Nadler played a prominent role in securing the briefing from Facebook, said the offical.

The Senate Judiciary Committee also is in the process of scheduling a briefing from Facebook, said George Hartmann, spokesman for Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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