Former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon had designs to infiltrate Facebook’s hiring practices leading up to last year’s election, according to BuzzFeed News. The aim was to “flood the zone with candidates of all stripes who will report back to you/Milo [Yiannopolous]” about the job application process, emails from former congressional staffer Chris Gacek to Bannon, obtained by BuzzFeed, read. The idea was to discover if there was political bias in the hiring process.
Gacek now works for the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank and lobbyist group. “Can u get on this” Bannon reportedly asked a staffer. The exchanges apparently happened on August 1st last year, months after president Obama warned Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg that Russia was attempting to interfere with the election process, and weeks before the former Breitbart publisher took the role of chief campaign strategist for Donald Trump’s presidential run.
The position was for a Public Policy Manager based out of Washington DC who would work for WhatsApp to “develop and execute WhatsApp’s global policy strategy,” and duties would include meeting with government officials and “elected members.” A researcher on the email chain commented that carrying out the plan might be difficult without Facebook becoming aware of the plan.
The job ultimately went to a former member of president Obama’s National Security Council, according to BuzzFeed. What’s concerning is that someone who would become associated with the campaign and have such an influential role in the White House would attempt to plant a mole inside one of the largest tech companies on the planet. We’ve reached out to Facebook and the White House for more information and will update this post should it arrive.
Source: BuzzFeed News
