Trump campaign digital director to be interviewed by House Intelligence Committee
As part of the congressional probe into whether the Trump campaign's digital operation helped Russia target U.S. voters with fake news stories, the campaign's digital director, Brad Parscale has agreed to be interviewed by the House Intelligence Committee, though he dismissed the idea that his team had aided Russia.
"I am unaware of any Russian involvement in the digital and data operations of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign," Parscale wrote in a statement on Twitter.
"The only collaboration I am aware of in the Trump digital campaign was with staff provided to the campaign by Facebook, Google and Twitter," he continued.
According to the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, D-California, investigators are looking into "whether there was any help in terms of the fake news the efforts to push negative news by the Russians, whether there was any coordination in the efforts to target that, to identify where it would be useful to push stories out on social media feeds."
Parscale's company, Giles-Parscale was paid $91 million by the Trump campaign to target voters with digital ads and social media. He also used data to raise money online for the campaign, and he helped target radio and TV ads, as well.
The strategies Parscale used were "the exact same digital marketing strategies that are used every day by corporate America," he said in his statement.
Through Parscale, the campaign paid dozens of data and digital specialists to work out of the San Antonio office of Giles-Parscale. Major technology companies including Facebook, Twitter and Google detailed employees to work "side-by-side" with the campaign operatives, Parscale said.
Companies often detail representatives to major advertisers, and those three offered the same services to Clinton's campaign. Facebook said in a statement the company has been in touch with several lawmakers who are interested in the subject.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, visited Facebook's California headquarters earlier this year.
Facebook said it has seen no evidence of Russian entities buying ads related to the presidential campaign on its site.
Parscale has also worked on websites for the Trump Organization and for Ivanka Trump's company since 2011.
