Information & Ethics Committee on June 12th, 2018

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Silvester.

First, I want to impress upon you the disappointment of this committee at the failure of Mr. Massingham to attend. I encourage you to impress upon your colleague the significance of this, and that we are going to have a conversation as a committee about how to proceed, and we're going to discuss the potential of moving forward with a finding of contempt. I would encourage your colleague to attend before us, and to come forward with dates that he could make himself available.

[Jeff Silvester]

We provided the information why he couldn't attend to your clerk.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Well, it was very limited information. Look, I have a lot of friends who are lawyers.

[Jeff Silvester]

That's fine. As that process unfolds, we're happy to participate.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

You have clearly lawyered up, and frankly, the information you provided isn't adequate.

I just have one last question before we move in camera. Do you think that Ripon was used for multiple SCL clients? I know it was used for the Cruz campaign in the primary. Who else was it used for?

[Jeff Silvester]

During the 2014 mid-terms there were a number of clients that it was used for. Bolton was one you brought up. I can get you the list. Off the top of my head, I don't have—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

If you could get us the list to us, that would be very useful.

After you were involved with SCL, Ripon stayed in SCL's hands. Is that correct?

[Jeff Silvester]

After the work we did, we did transfer the code to them. There is a version of the code that we last provided to them in our repository, but we have not used it. We did transfer the code to them after we were done, yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

You suggested today that it's likely, based on the information we now know, that the improperly obtained Facebook information is what was backing up SCL's psychographic profiling in Ripon.

It was used by Cruz. It was used by Bolton, and thereafter it was in SCL's hands. We know that Bannon played a role. We know that Mercer played a role. Plausibly, it was used in the Trump campaign as well, but I know that is after your time and that you can't speak to it.

With that, I thank you, Mr. Silvester.

We will now move in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]