Former Green Party's nominee Jill Stein paid for at least one advertisement among 3000 ads on Facebook which were used by Russians to influence 2016 election, Politico reported. She was the nominee for the US president during the 2012 and 2016 elections. The publication wrote that other paid advertisements intended to criticize Hillary Clinton, promoted Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders received financial support even after the end of his presidential campaign.

Russians bought ads bashed Clinton and promoted Trump

The White House reporter, Josh Dawsey wrote in a reference to a person who is familiar with the ads that Stein's ad came later in the presidential campaign and pushed her nomination for the president.

Her ad was placed on social media with the hashtag #GrowaSpineVoteJillStein and slogan, "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein." There is no information whether Trump, Stein or Sanders knew about the advertisements.

Some critics, including Hillary Clinton, in her newly launched book "What Happened" called Jill Stein a spoiler in last year's presidential election. Stein has been put under investigation after finding she has certain links with Russia. Some of the ads put questions on the authenticity of Clinton and played upon some liberals' beliefs that her candidacy would lead the US to a war with Iran.

On Wednesday, Stein tweeted that "Clintonites now trying to convince themselves that a corny "Facebook ad is the reason their candidate with a 30% approval rating lost."

It is not clear how many people saw the advertisements bought by Russians on Facebook because total spending on these ads was less than 1 percent of all spending on the election.

Facebook estimated that Russians spent $150,000 on the ads.

Facebook statement on Russian ads

US officials are investigating whether those 3000 ads on Facebook were the part of the Russian government meddling in 2016 election. Facebook initially refused to reveal the information related to ads but agreed to it after Special Counsel Robert Muller issued a warrant against the company to disclose the information.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the company could not find evidence of the linkage of fake accounts with the Russian advertising. Earlier, the company said in a statement that the accounts used for advertising did not provide reference to voting for a particular candidate for the U.S. presidential election. The ads were mainly focused on social issues including immigration, LGBT matters, etc.
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