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Robert Mueller's Team Reportedly Interviewed Facebook Staff As Part of Russia Probe (thehill.com) 229

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has interviewed at least one Facebook employee tasked with helping the Trump campaign's digital operations during the 2016 campaign, Wired reported on Friday. The report, which cited a source familiar with the matter, does not say when the employee was questioned nor does it detail the focus of the interview. Mueller's team has been investigating for months any collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russia. During the election, Facebook deployed employees to embed with the Trump campaign to assist its digital operations. The company also worked with Hillary Clinton's campaign team but did not have employees embedded with them. The company has also been scrutinized by Congress for selling more than 3,000 ads to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian "troll farm" alleged to have carried out misinformation operations online during the campaign.
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Robert Mueller's Team Reportedly Interviewed Facebook Staff As Part of Russia Probe

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  • by kenai_alpenglow ( 2709587 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @10:35PM (#56013087)
    Let the Pro/Anti Trump fights begin!
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What fight? Mueller has everything handled, the world has decided Trump's a moron from his own words alone. He's the least popular US President in recorded history. It's just time trickling down an hourglass at this point.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26, 2018 @11:11PM (#56013219)

        Oh dear, you actually believe that anything is going to happen to Trump don't you? Mueller is a special counsel, essentially a US Attorney. He can bring indictments against citizens for crimes but he cannot bring an indictment against an elected sitting US President or any Senate approved Cabinet appointees. That would be highly unconstitutional. All he can do is report what he thinks happened, and give that to the DoJ and Congress.

        The IC law expired many years ago - there will be no repeat of the Ken Starr and Clinton investigations. Congress may decide to Impeach, but Mueller can't do anything except report it.

        Also - there have been far less popular presidents in the past. I think you may be living in an echo chamber.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          He can bring indictments against citizens for crimes but he cannot bring an indictment against an elected sitting US President or any Senate approved Cabinet appointees.

          Actually never been tried.
          Anyone claiming that they know is full of shit. The experts in the field are still arguing about what and what not can be done here.
          There is nothing in the constitution or any other law that says that the president is exempt from the law. The question is who is in a position to hold him accountable.

          No president has ever pardoned himself and Nixon had the decency to not get a situation like this tried.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26, 2018 @11:55PM (#56013349)

        He's the least popular US President in recorded history.

        Trump current - 40% on RCP (or anywhere from 36% to 45% if you want to cherrypick polls to suit your agenda)

        Truman (Feb 1952) - 22%
        LBJ (Aug 1968) - 35%
        Nixon (Aug 1974) - 24%
        Ford (March 1975) - 37%
        Carter (June 1979) - 28%
        Reagan (Jan 1983) - 35%
        HW Bush (July 1982) - 29%
        Clinton (June 1993) - 37%
        W Bush (Nov 2008) - 25%
        Obama (Sept 2014) - 38%

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_approval_rating#Historical_comparison

        In the history of presidential job approval polls, only FDR, Eisenhower, and JFK were decisively *more* popular than Trump throughout their presidency.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          This is fake news bullshit.

          Read the link. Trumps best is 20 points lower than the next lowest presidental approval rating AT THEIR PEAKS.

        • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_approval_rating#Historical_comparison

          In the history of presidential job approval polls, only FDR, Eisenhower, and JFK were decisively *more* popular than Trump throughout their presidency.

          Presidents almost always become less popular over time.

          Trump's the least popular US President in recorded history up to this point in his term.

          Other Presidents had years of legacies and scandals with which to erode their legacies, not to mention congress controlled by hostile parties trying to undermine them.

          Trump has been historically unpopular out of the gate, and become only more unpopular as he and his party attempts to govern.

        • You match Trump's above-his-average current poll against the absolute lowest point of every other president - how is that supposed to be comparable?

          Why not compare everyone's lowest, where his 33 puts him merely sixth from the bottom? Or their disapproval rating, where he's second-worst. Or if you actually wanted to genuinely compare overall popularity, maybe look at the averages over their entire terms, where in a field ranging from 45 (Truman and Carter) to 70 (Kennedy), Trump comes in at a decidedly unpo

          • So you're saying we should compare entire terms, while only having a year of his to work with, during which most of the media hasn't yet even slightly paused in being completely unhinged about Hillary Clinton's inability to win the election, and spends untold hours every week trying their hardest to poison the well. How were you planning to make that full-term comparison, at this point? Check back next month when people's paychecks go up, no matter how much Pelosi tries to tell them they're victims.
            • Considering most presidents had their highest popularity ratings in the first year after they were elected, I'd say that was being generous. And I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, but Trump's biggest enemy is himself.

        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          So he shouldn't try to run a second term. Being unpopular does not get you fired as President, being impeached and the prosecuted does but of course Clinton never won and Obama is already out, so no impeachment required for them, just an end to the corruption that keeps them from being prosecuted and the Bush's as well. Everything coming out now points to Democrat Party/Russia Oligarch collusion and it looks suspiciously like the Democrats under Clinton sold the Crimea to Russian Oligarchs. The uranium one

      • > He's the least popular US President in recorded history.

        It seems that you are seeing the popular analyses that show him the least popular _after his first 100 days_, which was a popular message in various media. America has had Presidents become far more loathed and disliked:at various points in their career. In living memory, Richard M. Nixon at the end of his presidency comes to mind.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Despite your attempt to make it partisan, it was a real attack on the USA. It started BEFORE Trump was picked for the nomination, so it was also an attack on the Republican party.

      Do you think for a second Republicans want this whiny streak of loser in the Presidency? Their servers were attacked too, Putin's lot attacked them too. Trump attacks them too, undermines them too.

      Or Republican supporters, do you imagine they want a Russian sell out? If you think that, perhaps you've forgotten Roy Moore and his "he

      • The problem is that too many people (aided through deliberate efforts by most of the media) cannot (or pretend they are unable) grasp the difference between reporting on the latest episodes in Russia's decades-long campaigns to destabilize and meddle with politics here and in every other country around the world ... and the fantasy of Trump colluding with Putin to "hack the election." The ongoing attempt to qualify the investigation as strictly into the latter is indeed a narrowly partisan thing.
    • It is ten thousand years into the reign of God Emperor Baron Trump. Humanity has spread out into the galaxy and an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity has dawned. The only issue is that contact has been lost by a few outlying colonies and there are rumours they have been attacked by a hostile extra galactic force.

      Here's how Hillary can still win....

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This should be a non-partisan issue. It doesn't matter who side the Russian meddling was in support of, the fact that it happened and is now being properly investigated is the important thing.

      • Russian meddling, are you completely mad? There was no Russian meddling, in fact I have it on the best authority and I mean the very best, none better believe me, that this whole Russian thing is totally made up and fake and that experts have said, people who know things, are saying THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS RUSSIANS.

  • Mueller (Score:2, Insightful)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 )

    I have been thinking since this started that Mueller has the most phenomenal luck in catching this assignment. After running the FBI pretty much everything else he could do would be anticlimactic; a downhill slide to obscurity and retirement.

    Instead, everyone in the entire world is breathlessly waiting for what he has got. What his real skills are. What effect he will have on the history of the civilized world.

    Add to that there could not be a bigger, fatter, softer target that Donald J Trump and his hap

    • I want some of what this poster is smoking ;)

      Just my 2 cents ;)
    • Add to that there could not be a bigger, fatter, softer target that Donald J Trump

      All I know is that the next time I'm arrested, I pray that the cop sitting across the table questioning me is not Robert Mueller. I mean, Jesus Christ, the guy looks like an FBI hard case out of central casting. He gives me one of these looks and I'd give up my own mother.

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/con... [telegraph.co.uk]

      I have a feeling that everyone from the Trump administration who's been questioned by Mueller so far looked exactly like

    • no luck involved (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The Mueller investigation IS the coverup.
      1. Mueller was running the FBI and is a long-time good friend of Comey.
      2. Mueller handed off the FBI to Comey and then was involved serving Hillary in the Uranium One deal during the Obama years.
      3. Mueller, Comey, and even Obama are all tangled-up in Uranium One (which transferred piles of cash from Russia through the Clintion org to who-knows-whom) and all three were communicating with Hillary via her illegal private server (so ALL are involved in her felonies, whic

    • by ABEND ( 15913 )

      To get modded up, you should put your anti-Trump rant at the beginning of your post. The anti-Trump moderators don't read past the first sentence. The first sentence of your post is not obviously anti-Trump.

      • To get modded up, you should put your anti-Trump rant at the beginning of your post. The anti-Trump moderators don't read past the first sentence.

        So it would seem. I really don't care about getting up-mods all that much. Less than I care about clicking "submit" and there are still spelling errors.

        But given the nature of the pro-Trump responses in this thread already (obviously the source of my "Troll" rating) it is clear that they are so committed to "their side" that any discussion or rating of an objective statement seems wholly pointless. There is no objectivity in their world -- just their tribe and their agenda. So I leave it at that.

        • by ABEND ( 15913 )

          Maybe a nice project for someone doing a thesis would be to quantify the pro vs anti Trump posts and moderating. Are there more pro or anti? Do the biased posts and moderations follow a chronological pattern? Could "'bots" be involved? ...?

  • unless the electorate turns on the Republican party. That's really what doomed Nixon. I don't see that happening. There's not a lot of difference between the Dems & the Rs right now (excluding Abortion & maybe Gay rights). There's a movement in the Democratic party to change that [google.com] but so far they've been successfully shut out by the party leaders, even after the huge loss to Trump.
    • by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Friday January 26, 2018 @11:33PM (#56013297)

      If you don't want to lose to someone like Trump, don't run someone like Hillary.

      (in south park terms: I see your turd sandwich, and raise you a giant douche)

      The election wasn't ideological at all-- it's just they took one of the most hated figures in modern american political history -- and ran her against a jingoistic, populist mouth-breather.

      Ignore the pollsters and the news, what did you really think would happen?? A large swath of the voting public voted against Hillary. the fact that they wound up voting for trump was happenstance.

      • Hilary was run because she was popular with the billionaires who basically run things. Between Hilary and Trump they'd have taken either one, but they made damn sure we didn't get Bernie. Already I'm seeing stuff like top ten Democratic contenders lists without Bernie on them. The mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, etc) are doing their best to pretend he and the actual American Left don't exist.

        Meanwhile the Republicans took both the House and Senate but lost the popular vote both times. And not by small mar
    • The Justice Democrats are American political left's version of the Tea Party so it's little wonder that the Democrats want to have nothing to do with them. They might be able to garner a little bit of support, but they'll do more to drive people away from the party than they will to help the Democrats regain control of Congress.

      Even if that weren't the case, I don't expect that they would even manage to be as effective as the Tea Party managed to be, which isn't terribly much. They already have started c
    • by Anonymous Coward

      >unless the electorate turns on the Republican party.

      Not happening. And not because I'm asserting Trump didn't/won't do anything horrible (though he didn't), but because he - with the perpetually hysterical media's indispensable help - has immunized himself against almost any imaginable scandal. Trump's approval rating has been 40% +/- 5% for over 2 solid years despite constant pants-shitting about racism and treason and rape and literal-Hitlerness from every out of touch 'elite' in the media or show b

    • even after the huge loss to Trump.

      3,000,000 more votes = "huge loss".

  • They are only as loyal as the last payment you made.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by scumdamn ( 82357 ) on Saturday January 27, 2018 @08:39AM (#56014361)
    I needed a bunch of nerds who still hang around this obscure irrelevant tech site to tell me there's nothing to see here. Thank goodness you random people on the internet know more than the former head of the FBI and his team. It's good to know there will always be somewhere on the internet I can go to be reassured that Trump did nothing wrong and America is just as bad as the Russians anyway.
    • America starts most of the world's wars. You're not one of those right wing patriots, are you? Because American patriots are the cause of most of the world's problems. Without America, who would be around to start all the wars?
  • by arse maker ( 1058608 ) on Saturday January 27, 2018 @11:34AM (#56014885)

    Imagine what the Republicans would do if Muller was investigating president Obama under the same circumstances?

    • Imagine what the Republicans would do if Muller was investigating president Obama under the same circumstances?

      How many impeachment votes can you have in one year?

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