(CNN) President Donald Trump is using his powerful social media presence to push back against the impeachment inquiry, tweeting and retweeting more than 100 times over the weekend and his reelection campaign has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads on the topic over the past week.

More than 1,800 ads on Trump's Facebook page mentioning "impeachment" have run in the past seven days. The ads have been viewed between 16 and 18 million times on Facebook and the campaign has spent between $600,000 and $2,000,000 on the effort, according to data analyzed by Laura Edelson, a researcher at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering.

The President is using ads to enlist people in what his campaign is calling the "Official Impeachment Defense Task Force."

"I want to know who stood with me when it mattered most, which is why my team is making me a list of EVERY AMERICAN PATRIOT who adds their name and joins the Official Impeachment Defense Taskforce," one Trump ad reads.

Edelson, who has been tracking political ads on Facebook for more than a year, said many of the ads are being used to harvest contact information. She said data about ad engagement can also be a useful way for the Trump campaign to take the temperature of current supporters on specific issues.

Read More