Kremlin-directed operatives opened champagne when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, according to a communication disclosed in a new Senate Intelligence Committee report outlining Russia's sweeping social media efforts to help him win.
"We uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne ... took one gulp each and looked into each other's eyes .... We uttered almost in unison: 'We made America great,' " one operative at the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency said in the message obtained by the Republican-led committee.
The long-pending report by the Intelligence panel concluded that Russia directed an aggressive social media campaign to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump in the 2016 presidential election and warns similar efforts to interfere in U.S. politics are still underway. It was a bipartisan endorsement of the finding made by U.S. intelligence agencies and often questioned by Trump.