Did Russian Interference Change the Result of 2016 U.S. Election?
Trump deliberately conceals the fact that the U.S. intelligence agencies never tried to know the impact of Russian interference on election results.
By Rakesh Raman
It seems that Donald Trump has gone berserk. Instead of thinking about the issues such as American debt, unemployment, gun violence, dwindling American economy, and chaos in the White House, he is wasting a lot of time on issuing bizarre statements on the criminal investigation that he is facing.
During nearly one year of his presidency, Trump has constantly blamed all those who have accused him of conspiring with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election that Hillary Clinton lost.
Instead of waiting for the outcome of the investigation being done by the special counsel Robert Mueller to know the extent of Trump-Russia ties, Trump keeps using Twitter to vent out his frustration.
He has repeatedly blamed his bête noire Hillary Clinton, Democrats, American media, justice system, dissenting Republicans, and FBI for the ongoing investigation against him. Now, once again Trump’s target is Mueller and his investigating team.
Although there is enough circumstantial evidence that Trump illegally took enemy nation Russia’s help to defeat Hillary Clinton, he accused Mueller’s team saying that the investigation is part of the Democratic ploy to get him implicated.
Trump said that the investigation team has 13 Democrats while there is no Republican in Mueller’s group. “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats?” Trump asked, adding that there is “no collusion.”
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
While Trump keeps saying that the Russian interference did not impact the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, he deliberately conceals the fact that the U.S. intelligence agencies never tried to know the impact on election results.
As part of an ethical practice in a democracy, the agencies did not want to assess the voters’ opinion. But that does not mean that the Russian meddling did not change the election result. Rather, it is largely believed that Russians helped Trump win and Trump campaign was aware of this fact.
Although Trump had received majority of the 538 state-by-state electoral votes to win the presidency, Clinton won 48.2% of the popular vote compared with 46.1% for Trump. In other words, Clinton got nearly 3 million more votes than what Trump got in the election. But the U.S. election system declared Trump as the winner.
Meanwhile, an online petition on a dedicated “Need to Impeach” website claims that it has collected more than 5 million signatures of Americans who want impeachment of Trump.
Despite his alleged links with Russia and demands for his impeachment, Trump is expected to complete his four-year term. He also has declared emphatically that he will win again in 2020 to continue his presidency until 2024.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.
