Steve Bannon, owner of openly alt-right website Breitbart that launched with the intention of promoting Israel, joins Donald Trump’s election campaign as CEO, and Kellyanne Conway replaces Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager.
It wasn’t public information at the time, but Bannon had been involved with a Russian-influenced social media bot campaign in 2014 that, among other things, tested the usefulness of phrases like “drain the swamp” and “build the wall.” The campaign was an operation of Cambridge Analytica, a company Bannon co-founded in 2013.
Kellyanne Conway’s promotion comes after media scrutiny of Manafort’s involvement in Ukraine as well as his apparent involvement in shifting the U.S. Republican party’s efforts to arm Ukraine against Russia.
Sources
Photograph: Gage Skidmore
