What an absolute debacle the Iowa Caucus turned out to be. At the time of this writing we still don’t have the results … surely Trump will use this at least once in his SOTU tonight.
Seriously.
If Democrats were trying to remind the country why they have NO BUSINESS leading anything, they succeeded. And it sounds like one thing they are blaming for the mess/delay is their new fancy app the DNC contracted with Shadow Inc. to create.
Shadow Inc. What a name.
Kevin Gosztola did some digging on Shadow Inc. and it’s quite revealing:
I'm not the only one sharing this screen shot, but it seems important for this to get around to as many people as possible.
This is the "About" page for Shadow Inc, which was contracted to make the app for #IowaCaucuses. No staff named. This outfit is inexcusably secretive. pic.twitter.com/kUZorA9Pi5
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
He dug a little deeper; Shadow Inc. seems to have some interesting and some might even say shady connections.
Update: While they may not list themselves on their own website, staff profiles can be found on LinkedIn.
I'll share some details on a few of them.
(Thanks to @KafkaHemingway for screen shots from LinkedIn.) pic.twitter.com/QLOQjaap8z
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
See if you can spot a theme here:
Gerard Niemira is CEO of Shadow Inc. In 2015, he was senior product manager for Hillary Clinton's campaign, developing tools for field teams to contact voters. And in 2016, he was in charge of the tools used by volunteers.
He worked as an intern for Rep. Eliot Engel in 2005. pic.twitter.com/IMGqnIyWJa
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
Ahna Rao was special assistant to CTO for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. She worked for Merlon Intelligence, which uses tools to identify money laundering. She also was an intern at USAID for 3 months and an intern for House Foreign Affairs Committee for 4 months in 2010. pic.twitter.com/A8IZCVUivc
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
You guys notice the name of a certain old lady who liked to wear ugly pantsuits mentioned over and over again?
James Hickey is COO of Shadow Inc. He was engineering manager for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and worked for Sprinklr, a "customer experience management" platform. Also previously worked as IT consultant for Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2012-2013.
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
Krista Davis is CTO/Chief Architect. She was a staff backend software engineer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. pic.twitter.com/aOuXuvwOVo
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
Sarah Chabolla is the director of organizing and client success at Shadow Inc. She was a regional organizing director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. pic.twitter.com/rqTlbUc9W7
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
So those are some of the people that work at the company that made the app.
I don't have a conspiracy, and anyone accusing me of promoting a conspiracy is trying to provoke conflict. All I believe is there should be transparency around the company involved in this fiasco.
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
And that’s fair.
We’re just noticing a common denominator here and that’s hardly Kevin’s doing.
Let's hope we don't see a repeat of what happened in Nevada on February 22 pic.twitter.com/XDxCVH6RWt
— Kevin Gosztola (@kgosztola) February 4, 2020
Because this doesn’t seem shady AF.
Nope.
Good luck with that, DNC.
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