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Trump Data Firm CEO Is Said to Testify to House Panel Next Week

Trump Data Firm CEO Is Said to Testify to House Panel Next Week

(Bloomberg) -- The chief executive officer of a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign is set to testify in private before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its probe into Russian election interference on Dec. 14, according to a person familiar with the panel’s schedule.

Lawmakers likely will ask Alexander Nix, CEO of the data and analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, whether he sought material from WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange that was stolen from computers of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, who managed Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Nix said at a November technology conference in Lisbon that in “early June 2016,” he contacted WikiLeaks after Assange publicly claimed he had Clinton emails and planned to publish them. Assange previously told the Associated Press that WikiLeaks had rejected a “request for information” from Cambridge Analytica.

The House Intelligence panel didn’t say what it plans to ask Nix. But an October letter to his company from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, provides a possible road map. She asked for a description of any communication with Russian government officials, or their representatives, to identify potential voters for "targeted advertising, marketing or social media contact" in support of the Trump campaign.

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

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Bill Faries

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