Special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff has interviewed at least one member of a Facebook team associated with President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new report in Wired, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
The interview was part of Mueller’s Department of Justice probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and what role, if any, the Trump campaign played in it, the report said.
The report comes a day after Facebook said, in written replies provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that it found “insignificant overlap” between the targeting efforts of Trump’s campaign and that of a Russian propaganda unit called the Internet Research Agency.
Facebook also said in those replies, prompted by questions during a November 1 hearing on the matter, that it has been providing investigators, including those in Congress, with information it has regarding the scope and nature of Russian information operations.
That echoed a September post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said the company had shared what it had found with Meuller’s probe.
“We are actively working with the U.S. government on its ongoing investigations into Russian interference…When we recently uncovered this activity, we provided that information to the special counsel,” Zuckerberg wrote then.
Facebook has said previously that it offered help to both the Trump campaign and that of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in using the company’s platform for political advertising, but that it did not assign workers full time to either campaign.
Facebook declined to comment. Read the full report in Wired here.
