Senate Intelligence Chairman Criticizes Media ‘Narrative’ About Russia Investigation

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr is warning Americans and the media against trying to simplify the “narrative” surrounding Russian efforts during the 2016 election to the premise that foreign actors helped elect the president of the United States.

Burr said, "I'm here to tell you, this story does not simplify that easily."

Speaking Wednesday during a hearing into Russian use of social media during the 2016 election, Burr highlighted several media reports that purported to show how Russian-linked Facebook ads targeting Michigan and Wisconsin, two swing states, in the lead up to the election “directly influenced the election’s outcome.”

But Burr said, “What you haven’t heard is that almost five times more ads were targeted at Maryland than Wisconsin.”

Maryland, Burr said, was won handily by Democrats, yet it was targeted by 262 ads, compared to the 55 that targeted Wisconsin, which President Donald Trump won by less than one percent of the vote.

“Thirty-five of the 55 ads targeted at Wisconsin ran prior to the Wisconsin primary, before there was an identified Republican candidate, and moreover, not one of those 55 ads mentioned President Trump by name,” he said.

Divisive ads

Burr called it “troubling” the Russian-backed campaign was able to use American-made social media platforms to “conduct an Info Op. intended to divide our country,” but said “some of the context surrounding” the Russian operation has been absent from media reports.

According to Burr, of the $100,000 reportedly spent by Russians to buy Facebook advertisements, just under $2,000 was spent in Wisconsin, $823 in Michigan and $300 in Pennsylvania, another important state that helped Trump secure the election.

“To believe the narrative, you have to accept that these sophisticated, well-resourced Russian actors studied our processes, assessed what states would be critical to the election’s result, then snuck in and invested all of $300 to execute their plan in Pennsylvania,” he said, adding that five times as many advertisements were targeted at California, which hasn’t voted Republican in a presidential election in nearly 30 years.

Attorneys for Twitter, Facebook and Google were on hand Wednesday for the hearing, a day after a similar hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which they told lawmakers that Russian entities used their platforms to sow discord and disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, but downplayed the magnitude of those efforts.

Meager effort by trolls

Twitter's acting general counsel, Sean Edgett, repeated the statement he gave Tuesday, in which he told lawmakers the company has studied all tweets posted from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15, 2016.

That study, Edgett said, found that election-related content posted by automated Russian troll accounts "was comparatively small." He said the Russian troll accounts made up "around 1/100th of a percent of total Twitter accounts" during the time studied.

"Twitter believes that any activity of that kind, regardless of magnitude, is unacceptable and we agree we must do better to prevent it," he said.

Twitter has taken action against the suspected Russian trolls, suspending 2,752 accounts and implementing new dedicated teams "to enhance the quality of the information our users see," Edgett said.

Facebook, meanwhile, said it would hire more people to vet and, when necessary, remove content, and verify and publish the identities of election advertisers.

"Foreign actors used fake accounts to place ads in Facebook and Instagram that reached millions of Americans over a two-year period," Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said, testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. "Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory. Some are downright offensive."

Stretch, on Wednesday, told lawmakers the Russian Facebook posts were seen by 150 million Americans, up from the 126 million estimate released by Facebook earlier this week.

More than one candidate

When asked by Senator Jim Risch, all three lawyers agreed that the campaign was “much broader” than the 2016 election and aimed at creating divisiveness rather than promoting one candidate.

“The large majority of the material we saw was on the socially divisive side, rather than direct electoral advocacy,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, said.

Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate requiring some of the very steps technology giants say they are implementing on their own.

"It shouldn't be news to anyone that Russia interfered in the election," said California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. "What is really staggering and hard to fully comprehend is how easily and successfully they turned modern technologies to their advantage."

The social media attorneys said Russian trolling campaigns consistently sought to rile up Americans, first in a way damaging to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. After the election, they said, Russian efforts appeared aimed at sowing doubts about the legitimacy of Republican Donald Trump's victory at the polls.

Each of the lawyers told lawmakers investigations into Russian use of their platforms during the election are still ongoing and that they do not know the full scope of the Russian campaign.

The social media lawyers are also to meet with the House Intelligence Committee for a similar hearing on Russian election meddling.

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