Mark Zuckerberg confirmed before Congress today that Facebook is working with special counsel Robert Mueller. He also said that some users whose data was obtained by Cambridge Analytica may have been targeted with Kremlin misinformation.
“I know we are working with them,” Zuckerberg testified in response to a question about Mueller’s investigation into 2016 election meddling. “I want to be careful here, because that work is confidential. We are in open session and I don’t want to reveal anything that is confidential … I’m not sure that there are subpoenas, there may be.”
Wired reported in January that Mueller’s office “interviewed at least one member of Facebook’s team that was associated with President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.” Several Facebook employees were embedded with the Trump campaign to help formulate Facebook ads, reportedly working alongside Cambridge Analytica staff.
Zuckerberg was asked by senator Amy Klobuchar if there was an overlap between the approximately 126 million Facebook users who saw Russian propaganda, and the 85 million users whose data was illicitly obtained by Cambridge Analytica.
“We’re investigating that now and we believe that it is entirely possible that there will be a connection there,” Zuckerberg said.
A connection between those two groups could be hugely significant, suggesting that data made its way from the Trump campaign’s political consultants to Russian security services in order to target susceptible voters.