Pence says it’s time for Mueller to ‘wrap it up’

WASHINGTON » Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday he believes it’s time for special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and other potential mis deeds by those in the president’s orbit.

“In the interests of the country, I think it’s time to wrap it up.” Pence told NBC News following the release of three Americans held by North Korea.

Pence said the Trump administration has “fully cooperated” with Mueller’s probe, including turning over more than one million documents. President Donald Trump has called the investigation a “witch hunt,” and his outside counsel, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, has called on the Justice Department to put an end to the probe.

Pence added: “I would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his teamto bring their work to completion.”

The vice president was pressed on the news about millions of dollars in payments from companies to Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.

Pence said that was a “private matter” and “something I don’t have any knowledge about.”

House Democrats release Facebook ads

Democrats on the House intelligence committee have released more than 3,500 Facebook ads that were created or promoted by a Russian internet agency, providing the fullest picture yet of Russia’s attempt to sow racial and political division in the United States before and after the 2016 election.

Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and gun rights, among other issues. A large number of them at- tempt to stoke racial divisions by mentioning police brutality or disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement.

Some promote President Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, who ran against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary. Few, if any, support Clinton.

The intelligence committee Democrats released a sampling of the ads purchased by Russia’s Internet Research Agency last year, but they are now releasing the full cache of ads that Facebook officials turned over to the panel after acknowledging in September they had discovered the Russian efforts.

The release of ads from early 2015 through mid-2017 does not include 80,000 posts that the agency also shared. Some of the ads are partially redacted, part of an effort by Facebook and the committee to protect unsuspecting people whose names or faces were used.