The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.
Russia-scandal aficionados have realized for a while now that one of the more plausible ways Russia could have colluded with the Trump campaign would have been to coordinate the targeting of potential Trump voters with spammy Facebook ads. Facebook has responded to such suggestions by saying it didn’t have any evidence that Russia-affiliated actors had bought targeted U.S. political advertising during the election cycle. Today, that changed. From the Washington Post:
Representatives of Facebook told congressional investigators Wednesday that it has discovered it sold ads during the U.S. presidential election to a shadowy Russian company seeking to target voters, according to several people familiar with the company’s findings.
Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000, to a Russian “troll farm” with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda, these people said.
The Post report doesn’t say specifically that the purchased ads were pro-Trump; the Kremlin’s support for the Trump campaign, however, was made clear in other forums.
Raise the meter!
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images, Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images, Drew Angerer/Getty Images, and Peter Parks-Pool/Getty Images.
