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RUSSIA 🇷🇺 / РОССИЯ THREAD—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGENT—UKRAINE Peace?
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Facebook Gave Special Counsel Robert Mueller More Details on Russian Ad Buys Than Congress
Facebook Gave Special Counsel Robert Mueller More Details on Russian Ad Buys Than Congress
Social-media company shared copies of ads and account information, people familiar with the matter said
Sept. 15, 2017 6:29 p.m. ET
An employee in a Facebook data-storage center in Sweden. Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News
Facebook Inc. FB 0.40%▲ has handed over to special counsel Robert Mueller detailed records about the Russian ad purchases on its platform that go beyond what it shared with Congress last week, according to people familiar with the matter.
The information Facebook shared with Mr. Mueller included copies of the ads and details about the accounts that bought them and the targeting criteria they used, the people familiar with the matter said. Facebook policy dictates that it would only turn over “the stored contents of any account,” including messages and location information, in response to a search warrant, some of them said.
A search warrant from Mr. Mueller would mean the special counsel now has a powerful tool in his arsenal to probe the details of how social media was used as part of a campaign of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Facebook hasn’t shared the same information with Congress in part because of concerns about disrupting the Mueller probe, and possibly running afoul of U.S. privacy laws, people familiar with the matter said.
A Facebook spokesman said the company continues to investigate and is cooperating with U.S. authorities. A spokesman for Mr. Mueller declined to comment on the investigation.
Last week, Facebook disclosed that it identified about 500 “inauthentic” accounts with ties to Russia that bought $100,000 worth of ads during a two-year period encompassing the presidential campaign. The company also found $50,000 in ad purchases linked to Russian accounts. The combined funds purchased more than 5,000 ads on Facebook, the company said.
The disclosure was Facebook’s first acknowledgment that Russians used its platform to reach U.S. voters during the presidential campaign. It came about two months after Facebook said it had no evidence of Russian ad purchases.
In recent weeks, social media’s role in disseminating false information or inflaming public opinion has become a prime focus of the Senate and House intelligence committees, which are conducting separate probes into Russia’s influence on the election as well as whether President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates colluded with the Kremlin. The committees are aiming to write comprehensive public reports on Russian activity during the 2016 campaign.
Russia has denied any interference and Mr. Trump has denied any collusion.
Twitter Inc. is also expected to speak to congressional investigators in the coming weeks about Russian activity on its platform, said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. A spokeswoman for Twitter declined to comment on whether the company had received any warrants or handed anything over related to possible Russian ad buys.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit said in a statement, “We’re always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.” A person familiar with the matter said the company hasn’t been called to testify on the topic.
Congressional investigators have been frustrated by how little detail Facebook provided in its briefing to them about the Russian ad buying, people familiar with the meetings said. In a briefing with Senate and House staffers last week, Facebook officials showed half a dozen examples of ads purchased by the Russian groups, the people said. After the briefing, Facebook staffers retrieved all the material used in the presentation, leaving staffers with just their notes, the people said.
Academic researchers and others also have criticized Facebook for not sharing moreabout the Russian ad-buying with the public beyond the roughly 720-word post it published last week. The post said the majority of the ads Facebook identified didn’t reference the election, voting or either presidential candidate, and mostly focused on “amplifying divisive social and political messages” on topics ranging from immigration to gun rights.
Facebook officials are wary of sharing more details with the public and intelligence committees for fear that public disclosure of information could disrupt Mr. Mueller’s probe, people familiar with the matter said. Facebook also believes the data about the ads could be protected under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, one of the people said.
Handing over information or sharing it publicly without a valid legal order also could set a precedent for Facebook that would complicate its operations in the U.S. and world-wide, including in more authoritarian countries, the people said.
Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Warner are discussing plans to call representatives from Facebook to Capitol Hillto publicly explain how Russians manipulated the Facebook platform through paid and free posts to inflame U.S. public opinion and interfere in domestic politics.
Though negotiations are continuing and no final decision has been made, a Senate hearing on the role foreign governments played on social media is likely to be scheduled in coming weeks, according to the bipartisan leadership of the Senate committee.
Behind the scenes, details are still being worked out about the hearing, including gathering documents and facts that will inform the questions asked by members. A person close to the congressional investigation said both intelligence committees typically seek voluntary cooperation from potential witnesses before resorting to subpoenas. A subpoena hasn’t been ruled out, that person said.
Congress broadly has the power to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to appear before its committees to testify as part of a broad mandate to gather information.
According to Facebook’s policy, under U.S. law, a subpoena directed at the company would only allow access to “basic subscriber records” for a given account, including its name, when it was created, credit card information and, if available, the internet protocol address of where the user or page recently logged in or out.
A search warrant is a more powerful tool that would compel Facebook to disclose more detailed information about various accounts, such as messages, photos, videos, timeline posts, and location information.
According to a January report from the U.S. intelligence community, the highest levels of the Russian government were involved in directing the electoral interference to boost Mr. Trump at the expense of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Russia’s tactics included efforts to hack state election systems; infiltrating and leaking information from party committees and political strategists; and disseminating through social media and other outlets negative stories about Mrs. Clinton and positive ones about the Mr. Trump, the report said.
—Robert McMillan and Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this article.
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @The Taxman @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike
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GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia
GOP Congressman Sought Trump Deal on WikiLeaks, Russia
California’s Dana Rohrabacher asks for pardon of Julian Assange in return for evidence Russia wasn’t source of hacked emails
Siobhan Hughes
Updated Sept. 15, 2017 6:06 p.m. ET
Julian Assange, shown in London in May, is the founder of WikiLeaks, which published classified U.S. government documents in 2010. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
WASHINGTON—A U.S. congressman contacted the White House this week trying to broker a deal that would end WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s U.S. legal troubles in exchange for what he described as evidence that Russia wasn’t the source of hacked emails published by the antisecrecy website during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The proposal made by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), in a phone call Wednesday with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, was apparently aimed at resolving the probe of WikiLeaks prompted by Mr. Assange’s publication of secret U.S. government documents in 2010 through a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump.
The possible “deal”—a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call—would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.
From the Archives
Julian Assange emerged on the balcony of London’s Ecuadorian embassy in mid-May, just hours after Sweden's top prosecutor dropped an investigation into a rape claim against the WikiLeaks founder. Photo: Praxis Films (originally published May 19, 2017)
“He would get nothing, obviously, if what he gave us was not proof,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.
Mr. Rohrabacher confirmed he spoke to Mr. Kelly this week but declined to discuss the content of their conversation. “I can’t confirm or deny anything about a private conversation at that level,” he said in a brief interview. He declined to elaborate further.
A Trump administration official confirmed Friday that Mr. Rohrabacher spoke to Mr. Kelly about the plan involving Mr. Assange. Mr. Kelly told the congressman that the proposal “was best directed to the intelligence community,” the official said. Mr. Kelly didn’t make the president aware of Mr. Rohrabacher’s message, and Mr. Trump doesn’t know the details of the proposed deal, the official said.
In the call with Mr. Kelly, Mr. Rohrabacher pushed for a meeting between Mr. Assange and a representative of Mr. Trump, preferably someone with direct communication with the president.
“I would be happy to go with somebody you trust whether it is somebody at the FBI; somebody on your staff,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. The California congressman said he would be pleased to talk to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but that the agency “has its limitations” and wanted “to cover their butt by having gone along with this big lie.” The CIA was one of the intelligence agencies that helped determine in January that emails from prominent Democrats were stolen by Russian intelligence and given to WikiLeaks.
Mr. Pompeo has said that WikiLeaks is akin to a foreign hostile intelligence service and is an adversary of the U.S. “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,” Mr. Pompeo said in an April speech where he criticized the organization for stealing secrets from democratic governments all while receiving the backing of authoritarian states.
The CIA declined to comment further.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), shown in May, has long been a pro-Russia voice in Congress. Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
The U.S. has confirmed the existence of an investigation into the disclosure of classified material to WikiLeaks that was opened after the publication of hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents in 2010. Mr. Assange or the organization have never been publicly accused of wrongdoing. He and the group have said their actions were important in bringing transparency to the powerful institutions and governments and is akin to journalism.
Mr. Rohrabacher, who has long been a pro-Russia voice in Congress, traveled to London in August to meet with Mr. Assange, who has been living in Ecuador’s embassy since 2012 to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual assault. Mr. Rohrabacher’s travel wasn’t paid for by the U.S. House of Representatives and wasn’t an official government trip, aides said.
The Swedish investigation into Mr. Assange ended in May, but he remains in the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition by the U.S.
The organization said in a statement that Mr. Assange didn’t request a pardon at any time during his conversation with Mr. Rohrabacher. The organization didn’t address whether Mr. Assange asked Mr. Rohrabacher to carry a message to the president.
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“Mr. Assange explained that the ongoing attempts to bring a prosecution against WikiLeaks and its staff for its work documenting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are unconstitutional, widely condemned, should immediately cease and that the continuation is an abuse of process for improper purposes,” WikiLeaks said in a statement about the August meeting between Mr. Assange and Mr. Rohrabacher.
U.S. officials haven’t said whether they have formally requested Mr. Assange’s extradition or whether he has been secretly indicted by a grand jury.
After the visit to London, Mr. Rohrabacher said in a statement that Mr. Assange “emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”
Mr. Rohrabacher has also publicly stated his desire to arrange some sort of meeting between Mr. Assange and Mr. Trump or his representatives in media interviews after the visit. He told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that he had talked to “senior people at the White House” about presenting Mr. Assange’s evidence.
But his contact with the White House chief of staff and the idea of a deal between the Trump administration and Mr. Assange that would end the legal jeopardy faced by WikiLeaks hasn’t been previously reported.
WikiLeaks came under U.S. scrutiny after the publication of more than 250,000 classified U.S. State Department diplomatic dispatches. During the 2016 campaign, the organization also published thousands of emails stolen from the servers of prominent Democrats and Democratic political organizations.
The U.S. intelligence community later concluded that the Democratic emails were stolen and released at the direction of the Russian government, as part of a multipronged influence campaign aimed at boosting Mr. Trump at the expense of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. In a January report, the intelligence agencies said they had “high confidence” that Russian hackers stole emails from U.S. victims and released them publicly using WikiLeaks, another website called DCLeaks and a hacker persona known as Guccifer 2.0, among other channels.
Other Russia tactics, directed from the highest levels of the Russian government, included efforts to hack state election systems and disseminate through social media and other outlets negative stories about Mrs. Clinton and positive ones about the Mr. Trump, the report said. Russia denies any interference, while Mr. Trump has called the investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia a “witch hunt.”
During the campaign, Mr. Trump praised WikiLeaks for releasing negative information about Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats. At an October 2016 rally, he told a cheering crowd: “I love WikiLeaks.”
Since taking office, however, Mr. Trump’s administration has signaled that it considers stemming the leaking and dissemination of classified information to be a priority. Attorney General Jeff Sessions described the case against Mr. Assange as a “priority.”
Mr. Rohrabacher is known as an iconoclast within the Republican congressional caucus. In addition to holding views on U.S.-Russian diplomatic rapprochement that put him outside the mainstream of his party, he has used his perch in Congress to push issues like the legalization of marijuana.
He serves as the chairman of the subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, which has jurisdiction over Russia-related issues within the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
—Shane Harris and Del Quentin Wilber contributed to this article.
Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com, Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @The Taxman @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike
Low-key, the stories that just came out flesh out the current thread title 
can't even change it
can't even change it
@4d 6f 6e 65 79 Do you have me blocked or something? You keep posting shyt I post quite literally. It's no big deal but if you're not seeing it, that's one thing.
I quoted you tho with highlighted text@4d 6f 6e 65 79 Do you have me blocked or something? You keep posting shyt I post quite literally. It's no big deal but if you're not seeing it, that's one thing.
All good breh
A lot of new developments this week. Need to go back and reread. Mueller is out here connecting dots.
Turns out the kid just likes mowing lawns, this was never about cheetohMeet the president/Mow the lawn..
I'mma mow the fukking lawn!!!
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