Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election will churn on, Yahoo News reported Wednesday, as Mueller has apparently taken an interest in the online advertising operation built by the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee last year.
The investigation will reportedly seek to determine whether the Trump campaign and the RNC worked in conjunction with Russian-backed social media accounts that posted false or inflammatory political content. Business Insider's Natasha Bertrand pointed out that Russian hackers reportedly stole private voter records from several state and local election boards throughout the United States during the 2016 election. Curious minds in Congress have wanted to know about the fate of those stolen records since June.
Now, Mueller is reportedly considering the possibility that the Trump campaign and the RNC coordinated their voter outreach in swing states using Russian-acquired information. "Investigators have been looking into whether Russia provided the campaign with voter information stolen by Russian hackers," Bertrand explained, "and whether the Trump campaign helped Russia target its political ads to specific demographics and voting precincts."
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Brad Parscale, the head of the Trump campaign's digital team, has said that the idea of coordination with Russia is "a joke," but Bertrand notes that Parscale did not exactly deny having interactions with a "foreign government or foreign actor" in a response to a letter he received earlier this month from congressional investigators.
President Trump reportedly expects Mueller's investigation to end imminently, but a source told Yahoo News that the president's thinking was "fanciful."
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