Facebook handed Russia-linked ads over to Mueller under search warrant

After revealing that fake Russian accounts bought almost $100,000 of political ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign on its platform, Facebook has handed over more details to American Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The information, including copies of ads and details about accounts that bought them, was shared with special counsel Robert Mueller, the late Friday report said citing people familiar with matter.

The reason that Facebook hasn't turned over the same information to Congress is that the company was concerned about "disrupting the Mueller probe", the report stated. Those accounts, in turn, were linked to the pro-Kremlin troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency.

In the blog post, Stamos said: "In reviewing the ad buys, we have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 - associated with roughly 3,000 ads - that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies".

"We continue to cooperate with the relevant investigative authorities", a Facebook spokesman said.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also hasn't ruled out subpoenaing Facebook officials to publicly testify about how Russian Federation may have used the social media platform to influence the 2016 election, a person familiar with the investigation told the Journal.

As CNN reported Thursday, Facebook is still not sure whether pro-Kremlin groups may have made other ad buys meant to influence American politics that it simply hasn't discovered yet.

The special counsel's office has not yet responded to a request for comment.