As Democrats in Congress continue in their endless crusade to prove to you that Russia swayed the entire U.S. Presidential election with a measly $100,000 worth of Facebook ads, Adam Schiff (D-CA) has come forward this afternoon to let you know that he now has his hands on the 3,000 ads in question and plans to release a "representative sampling" of them in an effort to "inoculate the public against future Russian interference in our elections."
Once you've recovered from the laughing fit, here is his full statement:
"As part of their continuing cooperation with our Committee's investigation, Facebook has now turned over more than 3,000 ads it uncovered that were purchased by an organization connected to Russian intelligence services. These ads are significant to our investigation as they 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."
"As we fully examine these ads in the coming days, we will be particularly interested in understanding their full reach, in particular to determine what groups and individuals were most heavily targeted and why. We will continue to work with Facebook and other tech companies to determine the full extent of Russia's use of online platforms, including paid advertising, since what we now know may only scratch the surface."
"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, which remains a tactic we see the Russian government rely on today."
"Later this month, when our committee hears directly from tech firms in an open hearing, it's my hope to make a representative sampling of these ads public at that time so we can inoculate the public against future Russian interference in our elections. But I am also committed to making all of these ads public as soon as possible, working closely with Facebook to address any privacy considerations."
NEW: Facebook turns over 3,000 Russia-linked ads to congressional investigators; Rep. Schiff hopes to make "representative sampling" public pic.twitter.com/Ug457w6fwN
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) October 2, 2017
Of course, as Schiff continues to ignore reality and advance his "Russian collusion" narrative at all costs, even the Washington Post, who got their hands on some leaked copies of the now infamous 3,000 Facebook ads last week, admitted that the ads they saw hardly fit the narrative that Democratic lawmakers have spun in recent weeks, claiming the ads didn’t advocate on behalf of a specific candidate, but rather hewed to political issues like abortion rights (see: Leaked Descriptions Of Infamous "Russia Ads" Derail Collusion Narrative "They Showed Support For Clinton").
Moreoever, WaPo reported that the ads represented issues on both sides of the ideological spectrum, which would suggest that the buyers didn’t intend to support a specific candidate, but rather their own unique agenda.
The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.
The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics - also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.
In conclusion, while we could go through the effort of "fact-checking" each of the inconsistencies in Schiff's statement above, we'll just leave you with this more high-level, graphical analysis of why his continued focus on this specific issue is so criminally stupid (please note, this is not a mistake...the $50k worth of "potentially political" ads purchased by "Russian-linked" accounts literally isn't even big enough to show up on the chart compared to how much Hillary spent on her campaign).