Russia special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating ties between the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and Cambridge Analytica for the "last several weeks," ABC News reported Wednesday.
The network cited "sources" in its report, who disclosed "several digital experts" working on the Trump campaign "have met with Mueller's team for closed-door interviews."
The workers were on the RNC's payroll and they "served as key members of the 2016 operation working closely with the campaign and the data firm."
Cambridge Analytica, already under fire for obtaining the data of as many as 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge or consent, "worked closely" with Trump's team.
The campaign paid Cambridge Analytica more than $5.8 million for "data management" services during the 2016 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data disclosed by ABC.
However, the Trump campaign told the network in a statement it "used the RNC for its voter data and not Cambridge Analytica.
"Using the RNC data was one of the best choices the campaign made," a spokesperson said. "Any claims that voter data were used from another source to support the victory in 2016 are false."
According to the report, Mueller's investigators "have asked former senior level campaign staff about the digital operations."
More specifically, Mueller remains concerned about "how data was collected and used and how assets were targeted specifically in the battleground states," ABC reported.
Further, Mueller's team has "asked witnesses about the process of 'micro targeting'" — or using data to specifically identify certain groups of voters in order to "influence their thoughts and potentially their actions."
Cambridge Analytica, the New York-based data-analytics firm, is also under investigation by British authorities over the Facebook breach.
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