Large segments of the government-media complex assert President Trump colluded with Russia to win the White House. When the accusations first came out, it was reported U.S. intelligence agencies were in possession of proof connecting Trump officials to the Kremlin.
Said evidence has yet to see the light of day. Now, when lawmakers and talking heads discuss alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, they’re reduced to talking about Pokemon Go or Facebook ads. Does that mean Mueller’s probe is shifting gears?
Byron York of the Washington Examiner writes:
Some of that could be just an impression. But the fact is, the subjects that have dominated discussion of the Trump-Russia matter lately — Facebook and other social media ads and the most recent update from Senate Intelligence Committee leaders Richard Burr and Mark Warner — do not necessarily point toward collusion. Rather, more often than not, the latest talk points toward Russian “active measures,” that is, the effort to disrupt the 2016 campaign.
Why the change?
“Because that’s where the evidence is going,” one lawmaker who follows the matter closely told me in a text exchange. “I mean, things could always change, but that observation is just the reality of the situation right now, as I see it.”
“Because they’ve been spinning their wheels on something for which evidence has yet to emerge,” said another lawmaker.
“I think it’s 1) the Mueller probe means that stuff [allegations of collusion] is sort of in his wheelhouse now,” said yet another lawmaker, “and 2) I think there’s recognition that Trump himself is unlikely to be implicated in this.”
[…]
But the tone of the public discussion seems to be changing — away from collusion and toward Russia. Yet another lawmaker agreed that appears to be the case, and in a text message suggested there’s a simple reason: “Maybe reflects where they think it’s heading.”
If the tone of Mueller’s investigation is moving away from collusion and onto Russia itself, this appears to be yet another dead end, as well.
President Trump quashed another liberal media lie today in a series of Sunday morning tweets.
Trump correctly pointed out the much publicized mainstream media lies that a few Facebook ads flipped the 2016 election.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/921848853090983938?ref_src=twsrc% 5Etfw&ref_url=http% 3A% 2F% 2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com% 2F2017% 2F10% 2Ftrump-quashes-another-fakenews-media-lie-crooked-hillary-facebook-side% 2F
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/921829947093733376?ref_src=twsrc% 5Etfw&ref_url=http% 3A% 2F% 2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com% 2F2017% 2F10% 2Ftrump-quashes-another-fakenews-media-lie-crooked-hillary-facebook-side% 2F
President Trump: Keep hearing about “tiny” amount of money spent on Facebook ads. What about the billions of dollars of Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC & CBS? Crooked Hillary Clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on Presidential Election than I did. Facebook was on her side, not mine!
Once again, President Trump was correct.
** Russia spent $100,000 on Facebook before or after the 2016 election.
** This was during an election where Democrats outspent Republicans by over one hundred million dollars.
** The liberal media was meeting with and dining with top liberal reporters prior to the election.
** The liberal media gave Hillary Clinton over a billion dollars in favorable coverage.
** The ads promoted neither candidate.
** Half of the ads were posted AFTER the election.
** 25% of the ads did not play at all.
Here is more on those dangerous Russian ads from a previous report:
In September Facebook announced it would turn over 3,000 Russian-linked ads to GOP-led congressional committees. The left now claims 3,000 ads costing $100,000 that were neither favorable or unfavorable for either candidate flipped the 2016 election.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even released a statement on the conspiracy.
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/911089193551511552?ref_src=twsrc% 5Etfw&ref_url=http% 3A% 2F% 2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com% 2F2017% 2F10% 2Ftrump-quashes-another-fakenews-media-lie-crooked-hillary-facebook-side% 2F
President Trump was right again.
Now we know for certain that this was all another fake news story.
Russia Today reported this week that half of the Facbook ads ran after the election and 25% of the ads never ran at all.
Via Russia Today:
More than half of the ‘Russian advertisements’ on Facebook that supposedly influenced the 2016 US elections actually appeared after the vote, the company has revealed. Nobody even saw one-quarter of the ads bought by “inauthentic accounts.”In September, Facebook vowed to deliver Congress some 3,000 ads purchased between 2015 and 2017 and connected to 470 “inauthentic” accounts and pages, which, as it continues to say, “appear to have come from a Russian entity.”However, Moscow has blasted those allegations, while repeatedly stating that it had nothing to do with the 2016 vote.
“44% of total ad impressions [number of times ads were displayed] were before the US election on November 8, 2016; 56% were after the election,” the social media giant stated on Monday as it published some “facts” about “Russian ads.”
However, over “25% of the ads were never shown to anyone,” the Monday ‘factsheet’ says, adding the posts have reached some 10 million users.
The more you dig into the ‘Russia hacked the election’ Democrat-media conspiracy the more you discover there is nothing there.
Mark Penn, former chief strategist on Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, admits it’s impossible Russian Facebook ads won Donald Trump the White House. Penn uses basic math to dispel the notion that $100,000 of Russian ads would have had any impact of the election outcome.
WSJ reports:
Every day, Americans see hundreds of ads on TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, on billboards and smartphones. North Americans post to Facebook something like a billion times a day, and during the election many of those messages were about politics. Facebook typically runs about $40 million worth of advertising a day in North America.
Then consider the scale of American presidential elections.
Hillary Clinton’s total campaign budget, including associated committees, was $1.4 billion. Mr. Trump and his allies had about $1 billion. Even a full $100,000 of Russian ads would have erased just 0.025% of Hillary’s financial advantage. In the last week of the campaign alone, Mrs. Clinton’s super PAC dumped $6 million in ads into Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
I have 40 years of experience in politics, and this Russian ad buy, mostly after the election anyway, simply does not add up to a carefully targeted campaign to move voters. It takes tens of millions of dollars to deliver meaningful messages to the contested portion of the electorate. Converting someone who voted for the other party last time is an enormously difficult task. Swing voters in states like Ohio or Florida are typically barraged with 50% or more of a campaign’s budget. Try watching TV in those states the week before an election and you will see how jammed the airwaves are.