Data firm CEO: Reached out to WikiLeaks about Clinton emails

WASHINGTON – The CEO of a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s campaign says he reached out to WikiLeaks during the campaign about obtaining emails related to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica, says the outreach was in “early June 2016” after WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange had publicly claimed he had Clinton emails and planned to publish them. Nix says his firm asked a speaker’s agency for Assange if he “might share that information.” But he says Assange turned him down.

Nix’s comments Thursday at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, were his first acknowledgement of the outreach.

Assange had previously told The Associated Press that WikiLeaks had rejected a “request for information” from Cambridge Analytica. The Wall Street Journal first reported Nix’s comments.