, and executives from lukoil, russia's second-largest company. the firm cambridge analytica made presentations and send -- sent documents to lukoil that made reference to its experience in this information, that made reference in its experience to informational campaigns, attitudinal. alexander nix emailed me a white paper. that white paper discussed the data assets the company had in the u.s. and strategies it was employing. the lead researcher that cambridge analytica used to harvest the facebook data, dr. kogan, was also working on projects in russia on psychological profiling at the university of st. petersburg. the company had also engaged contractors who had previously worked in eastern europe for progression parties, and indeed, the company decided to test american views on the leadership style of vladimir putin, and american views on eastern european issues relating to russian expansionism in the region. to be clear, the only foreign leader that was tested when i was there was vladimir putin, and the bulk of the foreign issues being teste

cambridge analytica was also in close contact with senior executives at lukoil. they presented lukoil with documents outlining experience with former -- foreign disinformation and american data assets. facebook about these schemes since 2015. before the story broke, facebook threatened to sue "the guardian" and banned me for whistleblowing. responding on behalf of the british government, the u.k. secretary of culture called this outrageous because it revealed the unrestrained power technology companies can exercise over ordinary citizens, when a person's entire online presence can be so quickly eliminated from existence. there's no check on this power, and it raises a serious question for republicans and democrats alike. what happens to our democracy when these companies can delete people at will when they speak out? mark zuckerberg's continual refusal to cooperate with the british inquiry reveals the challenge other countries face to hold companies like facebook to account. the british parliament is considering this after facebook refused and failed to answer 40

feinstein: what did cambridge analytica tallied lukoil -- tell lukoil about it stayed on americans? did it share any of that data or is it possible russia acquired any of its data on americans? mr. wylie: in sending the white paper and discussions that i had with alexander nix about why he was speaking to the company, i datathat the scale of the and the location of the data was made known. also, that dr. kogan was involved in that data collection project. , ifconcern that i have is you were intending on acquiring the data, even if you are not intending to acquire the data was willing for dissipation of cambridge analytica, but what is that this could be easily acquired by something as easy as a key logging on dr. kogan's computer while visiting russia. cassidy: thank you, mr. chairman. professor first, i don't really have a question. i will come back to you if i have time. if what you are saying is that people in america are not persuadable or persuaded by advertising, i think that's rubbish. i think really smart people spent $200 billion last year on advertising. and i hear kids al

the ceo of russia's lukoil says it is time to raise output these comments, bearish comments that aret with what we have been hearing reportedly out of opec in the next meeting they may very well be poised to raise output to make up for some of the supply short falls coming from venezuela and iran. lukoil's ceo saying oil at 80 is already a high price we are seai inseeing weakness it crude and nymex crude. >> that dip in the ftse 100 p 0y have something to do with sterling trade this after uk retail data was well above expectations. let's break down the details in april the retail sales grew by 1.6% on a monthly basis versus a decline in march, that was the biggest monthly rise since october 2016 you can see that reaction. perhaps wages outpacing inflation is spelling good news for consumer spending. so overall that 1.6% increase is a big increase let's get back to another story in europe, in paris french president emanuel macron has hosted some of the digest tech ceos from the u.s. including mark zuckerberg in a bid to further his tech for good campaign and drive more investment into

wylie: sorry, can you clarify slightly what you mean direct asxperience is it relates to lukoil, as itrelates to understanding the research that was being done in terms of the focus groups and all that. sen. durbin: in the use of information by the russians in the election campaign -- mr. wylie: oh, i'm sorry. i misunderstood. yes. sen. durbin: that either happened some other place or after you left cambridge analytica? mr. wylie: yes. i was not aware at the time that there was activities in russia to influence the united states elections. sen. durbin: so i would just add that to the second category. the first question, privacy. the second question is the involvement of foreign nationals in the united states campaign. whether mr. knicks personally or russia as a country tried to influence the impact. the third has been brought up by my colleagues and i think gets to the heart of another very important issue, and that is the issue of the secrecy of this activity. the fact that we know mr. mercer was engaged in this is because of something called open secrets and other sources that were