Updated at 3:55 p.m. ET
Cambridge Analytica has suspended its CEO, Alexander Nix. The London-based company, which is accused of using data from 50 million Facebook users to influence the 2016 presidential campaign, announced the move Tuesday afternoon — one day after the release of a video that appears to show Nix acknowledging the firm's engagement in political dirty tricks.
"In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix's recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm," the company's board of directors said in a statement, "and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation."
The board said it is replacing Nix with Alexander Tayler in the interim as an independent investigation is conducted.
The British government says it has opened an investigation of its own, seeking a warrant to search databases and servers belonging to the company. U.K. Information Minister Elizabeth Denham had demanded access to Cambridge Analytica's databases by Monday after reports that the company improperly mined user data from Facebook to target potential voters.
However, after the firm missed the deadline, Denham told Britain's Channel 4: "I'll be applying to the court for a warrant."
Cambridge Analytica says it used legal means to obtain the data and did not violate Facebook's terms of service. Facebook has promised "a comprehensive internal and external review."
Denham's statement follows the latest revelation in the British media about the firm co-founded by former White House adviser Steve Bannon and heavyweight Republican donor Robert Mercer. The company is an offshoot of behavioral research and strategic communications company SCL Group and has ties to the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.
On Monday, Channel 4 broadcast the hidden-camera exclusive that appeared to catch Nix acknowledging that the firm works secretly in political campaigns around the world by using front companies and subcontractors.
In a statement issued Monday, Cambridge Analytica charged that the video was "edited and scripted to grossly misrepresent the nature of those conversations and how the company conducts its business."
Channel 4 says the recordings were made of meetings at London hotels between November 2017 and January 2018. They included Nix and two others speaking to an undercover reporter posing as a representative for a wealthy client trying to get candidates elected in Sri Lanka.
Nix attempts to sell the company's potential services, such as the deployment of "honey traps" to target opponents — including secretly filming politicians taking bribes or in the company of prostitutes.
"We'll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance," Nix says on hidden camera. "We'll have the whole thing recorded, we'll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet."
He is heard saying that one strategy for compromising opponents is to "send some girls around to the candidate's house," adding that he prefers to use Ukrainian girls. They "are very beautiful, I find that works very well," he says.
Two other individuals also appear in the hidden-camera footage: the company's chief data officer — Tayler, who has been tapped as interim CEO — and Mark Turnbull, the managing director of CA Political Global.
Nix advises the undercover reporter that "I'm just giving you examples of what can be done, what has been done."
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