Ah, excellent, this demonstrates rampant confusion created in this area very well.
> Mueller investigation and investigations undertaken on FB, Twitter and Reddit posts/ads from russian based accounts
Ads most definitely happened. Though the valiant effort by Mueller's team is mostly wasted because a) publicly speaking about US politics while being Russian is not a crime, neither is astroturfing or failing to disclose vested interest (both are routinely done in advertising and politics), and trying to imply otherwise would run straight into the 1st amendment, which SCOTUS still has pretty healthy respect for; and b) even minor financial irregularities, that are crimes, which Mueller inevitably discovered (I mean, can you imagine a campaign run by thoroughly corrupt Russian government that won't have financial irregularities? even many US campaigns are full of them if you look close enough...) are not prosecutable since none of the perpetrators are anywhere US law can reach them.
However, the ads definitely existed. Moreover, it is also a definite fact that there were multiple hacks of both DNC and RNC computer systems, some of them might have been perpetrated by Russian groups. As a result of those, some dirty laundry definitely got aired.
> what exactly are you saying did not occur?
"hacking elections". Which is a commonly used phrase, and it is both vague and misleading. There is no indication that any component of electoral system per se was hacked, so direct meaning - implying the genuine voting preferences of Americans were subverted - is definitely false. We may only talk about persuasive effects of the Russian actions, but even then there's not much.
There is no indication that a minuscule-budgeted and hamfistedly-executed (I mean, have you seen them? they are hilariously bad) Russian ads changed anything in relation to the elections. The airing of dirty laundry that followed the email hacks may have had some influence, but it is in line of long-standing tradition of leaks and whistleblowing that has existed in US politics since forever - a lot of secret things become public eventually, to the major embarrassment of people who would rather not have them published. I haven't heard any of the leaks referred to as "hacking the election" - in fact, many are lauded as valiant efforts in informing public about the misdeeds of the powerful.
So summarily, nothing is left from the claim that "Russians hacked the elections" in any meaningful sense. The most one could claim is "Russians tried to influence the elections, mostly without success, but it is possible they uncovered some dirt on some of the politicians that may have influenced some voters".
Ah ok, so I agree that they didn't actively interfere with the voting process itself, however there still appears to have been collision between the trump campaign and foreign agents, which is illegal and is what the Mueller probe is looking into.
> Mueller investigation and investigations undertaken on FB, Twitter and Reddit posts/ads from russian based accounts
Ads most definitely happened. Though the valiant effort by Mueller's team is mostly wasted because a) publicly speaking about US politics while being Russian is not a crime, neither is astroturfing or failing to disclose vested interest (both are routinely done in advertising and politics), and trying to imply otherwise would run straight into the 1st amendment, which SCOTUS still has pretty healthy respect for; and b) even minor financial irregularities, that are crimes, which Mueller inevitably discovered (I mean, can you imagine a campaign run by thoroughly corrupt Russian government that won't have financial irregularities? even many US campaigns are full of them if you look close enough...) are not prosecutable since none of the perpetrators are anywhere US law can reach them.
However, the ads definitely existed. Moreover, it is also a definite fact that there were multiple hacks of both DNC and RNC computer systems, some of them might have been perpetrated by Russian groups. As a result of those, some dirty laundry definitely got aired.
> what exactly are you saying did not occur?
"hacking elections". Which is a commonly used phrase, and it is both vague and misleading. There is no indication that any component of electoral system per se was hacked, so direct meaning - implying the genuine voting preferences of Americans were subverted - is definitely false. We may only talk about persuasive effects of the Russian actions, but even then there's not much.
There is no indication that a minuscule-budgeted and hamfistedly-executed (I mean, have you seen them? they are hilariously bad) Russian ads changed anything in relation to the elections. The airing of dirty laundry that followed the email hacks may have had some influence, but it is in line of long-standing tradition of leaks and whistleblowing that has existed in US politics since forever - a lot of secret things become public eventually, to the major embarrassment of people who would rather not have them published. I haven't heard any of the leaks referred to as "hacking the election" - in fact, many are lauded as valiant efforts in informing public about the misdeeds of the powerful.
So summarily, nothing is left from the claim that "Russians hacked the elections" in any meaningful sense. The most one could claim is "Russians tried to influence the elections, mostly without success, but it is possible they uncovered some dirt on some of the politicians that may have influenced some voters".