Congress Releases All 3,500 “Russian” Facebook Ads

Public Health Warning: Reading these ads can cause you to become a “Russian operative” and has been known to bend your mind to vote against “the most qualified candidate ever.”

* * *

It has been more than a month since Republicans on the House Intel Committee officially ended the probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, and roughly a week since they released an unredacted version of their investigative report that revealed more lies told by top FBI officials.

So it’s understandable that Democrats on the Intel committee are chomping at the bit to revive the anti-Russia hysteria. And in their latest attempt, Democrats have finally released all of the more than 3,500 Russian-bought Facebook ads that purportedly swayed the 2016 vote in Trump’s favor. Of course, anti-Russia sentiment, which seemed ubiquitous just six short months ago, has more recently faded from view as the public has realized that there’s “no ‘there’ there,” as FBI special agent Peter Strzok said in a tweet to his mistress. 

But after seeing the ads, which are sorted by the time during which they ran, it’s impossible to believe the Russians didn’t have something to do with it. After all, instead of running ads that blatantly supported President Trump, most of the ads we found supported progressive causes like Black Lives Matter and gay rights – causes which President Trump unambiguously supports, right?

Here’s an ad expressing support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite athlete, Colin Kaepernick…

…and here’s another supporting a pair of YouTubers who had their Facebook account banned for reportedly being Russian propagandists. In one video, they told black viewers not to go out and vote, arguing that there was “no point.”

Meanwhile, another ad expressed support for gay rights.

After careful viewing, it should be obvious to all that these ads – many of which ran before or after the election, and only a small fraction of which expressed support for conservative causes – had a larger impact on the outcome of the election than the entire mainstream media, which pumped out anti-Trump coverage 24 hours a day for more than six months leading up to the vote.

Lol, so Kremlin ads were more effective at targeting and convincing American voters than the entire domestic mainstream media supporting Hillary Clinton https://t.co/PckLHpWfuV

— GreekFire23 (@GreekFire23) May 10, 2018

It’s a relief to finally get some confirmation that electing the most anti-establishment candidate in the history of American politics wasn’t the American people’s fault.

Find the rest of the ads here.