Cambridge Analytica Whistle-Blower to Meet with House Democrats

House Democrats plan Tuesday to interview Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, who renewed his warning over the weekend that "malicious actors" are using social media to threaten democracies around the world.

Wylie is to meet privately with Judiciary Committee members and staff, as well as staff from the Oversight and Government Reform panel. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to meet behind closed doors with House Intelligence Committee Democrats.

Wylie wrote on Twitter Saturday, "Democracies around the world are under threat from malicious actors who seek to use social media as an information battleground."

"We must take this seriously," he added.

Republican members and staffers from the Judiciary and Oversight committees aren’t expected to participate in the closed-door interview Tuesday.

Wylie set off a firestorm last month with his revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a U.K. political research firm hired by President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, acquired tens of millions of Facebook profiles to harvest data of unsuspecting U.S. users.

Wylie testified publicly last month before a U.K. parliamentary committee, where he described Cambridge Analytica as an organization that dealt with illegal data and hacked material to win elections. He said Trump’s election was one of the reasons he blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica’s data practices.

Trump Connection

"I wouldn’t say it was just because of Donald Trump, but Donald Trump makes it click in your head that this actually has a much wider impact," he told the parliamentary committee. " I don’t think that military-style information operations is conducive for any democratic process."

During the U.K. appearance, some lawmakers questioned Wylie on the links between Cambridge Analytica, its parent company SCL, and work on various political campaigns including Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union. He said that vote might have come out differently "had there not been, in my view, cheating."

Wylie also tweeted over the weekend that he would "be happy to speak to the European Parliament."

"There are actually more active Facebook users in the EU than in the USA, which makes Mark Zuckerberg’s reluctance to address international lawmakers all the more disappointing," Wylie said of the Facebook chief executive officer, who appeared earlier this month before U.S. congressional committees.