divisive political and social issues. in mid 2014, ira employees travelled to the united states on what the report describes as a, quote, intelligence-gathering mission to obtain information and photographs for use in their social media posts. over time, these accounts became a means to reach large u.s. audiences. and in the months before the presidential election, ira operations included supporting the trump campaign and disparaging candidate hillary clinton. that's in the report. it's not up for debate. that's in the report. you can debate whether it's true or not, but the fact that it's in the report, something that the president tends to deny, is, in fact, undeniable. the russians did this through various activities, like buying political ads on social media, posting as americans and american entities. under this disguise, some ira employees communicated electronically with people associated with the trump campaign. and with other political activists looking to coordinate political activities like staging rallies.