Before they ran shady data operations for Donald Trump's campaign, Cambridge Analytica worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during his presidential bid. Now, the Texas Republican is under fire for hiring the group amid reports that they improperly used Facebook data.
The Dallas Morning News reported Monday that the Cruz campaign kept Cambridge Analytica on retainer six months after initial reports of the firm using illicitly-sourced Facebook data surfaced in 2015 — a fact the Texas Democratic Party touted in a news release published on Monday.
"Ted Cruz will stop at nothing to weasel his way into power, even if it means weaponizing stolen information to manipulate people to like him," Manny Garcia, the deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a press release. "Cruz's campaign exploited personal information to create psychological profiles on millions of Americans. All to keep lining the pockets of Cruz's billionaire super PAC donors -- like Robert Mercer, who funded this propaganda machine."
In another release questioning Cruz and his campaign for stealing "personal information from millions of Americans," the party queried whether the senator will cooperate with investigators and if he continued to do business with CA after they began working for Trump in mid-2016.
Texas Democrats, the Morning News noted, have their own candidate to promote in light of the latest revelations — Beto O'Rourke, who won the state's Democratic primary earlier in March.