By David S. Cloud
Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Facebook has handed over to congressional committees more than 3,000 ads purchased during the 2016 election campaign by a firm with ties to Russian intelligence, a lawmaker said Monday.
The ads have emerged as key evidence that the Kremlin sought to secretly influence the presidential election since Facebook disclosed they had appeared on its site in 2015 and 2016.
The social media ads “help demonstrate how Russia employed sophisticated measures to push disinformation and propaganda to millions of Americans online during the election, in order to sow discord and chaos, and divide us from one another,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a statement.
Schiff said he hopes to make at least some of the ads public, perhaps later this month, when Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, one of four panels examining Russian interference in the U.S. election.
Facebook has refused to make the ads public, citing privacy concerns.
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is separately investigating if the Trump campaign aided the Russian government. Trump has vehemently denied any such collusion.
But the use of social media was part of a broad effort by the Kremlin to help then-Republican nominee Donald Trump and harm Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a January report.
In most cases, the social media ads did not refer to particular candidates. They focused instead on divisive themes such as race, gay rights, gun control and immigration, according to a person familiar with them.
Facebook disclosed the existence of the ads last month. It said they were purchased through 470 fake accounts traced back to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian entity known for posting pro-Kremlin propaganda online.
U.S. intelligence agencies said in January that the Internet Research Agency was likely financed by “a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.”
Schiff said congressional investigators would examine whether the ads were aimed at particular communities or voters, using Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
“We will be particularly interested in understanding their full reach, in particular to determine what groups and individuals were most heavily targeted and why,” he said.
“The American people deserve to see the ways that the Russian intelligence services manipulated and took advantage of online platforms to stoke and amplify social and political tensions,” he added.
Twitter said last week that it had found around 200 accounts linked to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
