U.S. Senate report to detail extent of Russian election meddling: Washington Post

[December 17, 2018]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate will publish a report this week detailing the vast scope of Russia's disinformation campaign surrounding the 2016 U.S. election campaign, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The U.S. Capitol building is seen at sunrise on the day of the U.S. midterm elections as voters go to the polls across the country to elect 33 U.S. senators and all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo

The research, a draft of which was obtained by the newspaper, is the first to study the millions of social media posts provided by major technology firms Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Google, to the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to the Post.

The research provides more detail on known efforts by the Russian government's Internet Research Agency to bolster Republican Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and sow discord among U.S. voters by posting on contentious issues such as gun violence and race, according to the Post.

The bipartisan panel has not said if it endorsed the findings of the report, which was compiled for the Senate by researchers associated with England's University of Oxford, the newspaper reported.

It will be one of two reports the committee will release this week, the Post said.

A representative for Senator Richard Burr, the panel's chairman, declined to provide comment to Reuters on Sunday.

Russia has denied it meddled in the election, contrary to the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Earlier this year, U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office indicted 13 Russian individuals and three corporate entities in an alleged conspiracy to tamper with the U.S. presidential race by adopting false online personas to push divisive messages, traveling to the United States to collect intelligence and staging political rallies.

(Reporting by Michelle Price; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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