James Clapper hit back at a Facebook exec’s assertion Russia’s main objective wasn’t to swing the 2016 election.
By Emily Stewart Feb 18, 2018, 4:10pm EST
This week, Facebook looks like it’s trying to give Russia the benefit of the doubt. Rob Goldman, vice president of ads at Facebook, used Twitter on Friday to applaud Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments of multiple Russian people and companies for their interference in the 2016 election. Goldman said he also wanted to clear a few things up —namely, that he doesn’t believe that Russia’s main goal was to sway the 2016 election. On Sunday, however, James Clapper, former director of national intelligence under the Obama administration, clapped back: of course Russia was trying to influence the election. Obviously both can’t be true.
Goldman’s reasoning was based on the fact that a majority of Russian ad spending on Facebook happened after the election. “The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst Americans,” Goldman wrote. “It is working incredibly well. We are quite divided as a nation.” he wrote. The executive pointed to a Houston anti-Islamic protest in May: “Americans were literally puppeted into the streets by trolls who organized both sides of the protest,” he said. President Donald Trump picked up on Goldman’s thread on Saturday.
Donald J. Trump
?
@realDonaldTrump
“I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.”
Rob Goldman
Vice President of Facebook Ads https://twitter.com/robjective/status/ 964680122950234112 …
3:16 PM - Feb 17, 2018
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On the other hand, to Clapper — a retired lieutenant general in the Air Force who was director of national intelligence under Obama and served in the Bush and Clinton administrations as well — Goldman’s logic is naïve. In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash on Saturday, the general hit back at Goldman’s assertion. “Well, it’s false, as far as I’m concerned, because there’s no question what the Russians were trying to do,” Clapper said, noting that all evidence points to that being the case, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. “Clearly, the Russians were trying to affect the election.”
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