WASHINGTON -- Cambridge Analytica, which has been accused of improperly mining Facebook data, collected nearly $20 million during the 2016 election cycle, including more than $5.9 million from the Donald Trump campaign and more than $5.8 million from the campaign of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
But they also collected nearly $1.6 million during the 2014 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including $20,000 from the Senate campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
With Cambridge Analytica facing increased scrutiny, CNN and other media outlets have pointed out the company's ties to Cotton.
The expenditure occurred in October 2014.
"At the end of the 2014 campaign, our campaign did a small project with Cambridge Analytica," Cotton's Chief of Staff Doug Coutts said in an email. "Their work had little effect on the campaign and we have had no relationship with them since then."
The Democratic Party of Arkansas quickly condemned Cotton for his ties to the company and for voting to roll back President Barack Obama-era Federal Communications Commission rules that Democrats said would protect online privacy.
"Then-candidate Cotton's $20,000 payment to Cambridge Analytica combined with Sen. Cotton's vote last year to allow internet service providers to sell user data without their permission shows not only Cotton's disinterest in stopping companies from violating his constituents' privacy, but his enabling of the very system that profits from it."
Cotton had argued that the FCC rule improperly created one set of rules for companies, such as Google and Facebook, while creating another set of rules for other companies.
