I’m sincerely at a loss for how most/many of these could have influenced the election. Part of me think that Congress is making mistakes and Putin is scrolling through these, laughing hysterically that we actually think he’d pay for this nonsense.
The ads are just the tip of the iceberg.
That trick is as old as the Church that invented it for the obvious purpose.
That's like "election meddling" repeated on CNN 10 times per day just to convince people "it was something but we will not tell you what".
UPDATE: here is the story of the same trick used while ago: https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/meet-guy-sims-fitch-a-fake-w...