Page:Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election.pdf/39

U.S. Department of Justice

Attorney Work Product // May Contain Material Protected Under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)

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An image captioned "IRA Poster for Pennsylvania Rallies organized by the IRA" has been removed due to copyright restrictions.

From June 2016 until the end of the presidential campaign, almost all of the U.S. rallies organized by the IRA focused on the U.S. election, often promoting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton Campaign. Pro-Trump rallies included three in New York; a series of pro-Trump rallies in Florida in August 2016; and a series of pro-Trump rallies in October 2016 in Pennsylvania. The Florida rallies drew the attention of the Trump Campaign, which posted about the Miami rally on candidate Trump's Facebook (as discussed below).^[1]

Many of the same IRA employees who oversaw the IRA's social media accounts also conducted the day-to-day recruiting for political rallies inside the United States.                    
Harm to Ongoing Matter                                      
                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                       
                                                                               ^[2]

6. Targeting and Recruitment of U.S. Persons

As early as 2014, the IRA instructed its employees to target U.S. persons who could be used to advance its operational goals. Initially, recruitment focused on U.S. persons who could amplify the content posted by the IRA. Harm to Ongoing Matter                                                                                
                                                                               

Harm to Ongoing Matter                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                       .^[3]

IRA employees frequently used Investigative Technique           Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to contact and recruit U.S. persons who followed the group. The IRA recruited U.S. persons from across the political spectrum. For example, the IRA targeted the family of          
Personal Privacy                                                                                 and a number of black social justice activists

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1. The pro-Trump rallies were organized through multiple Facebook, Twitter, and email accounts. See, eg., Facebook ID 100009922908461 (Matt Skiber); Facebook ID 1601685693432389 (Being Patriotic); Twitter Account @march_for_trump; beingpatrioticgmail.com. (Rallies were organized in New York on June 25, 2016; Florida on August 20, 2016; and Pennsylvania on October 2, 2016.)
2. Harm to Ongoing Matter                                                            
3. Harm to Ongoing Matter                                                                                                                                                                

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