Over the years, the arguments surrounding election integrity have intensified. Since the 2016 presidential election, American citizens have been worried that our processes are seriously compromised.
Democrats claimed Russia helped Donald Trump win in 2016, and many believe there were major issues with the 2020 election (especially concerning mail-in ballots).
Of course, since 2016, we’ve also managed to lay some theories to rest — due almost entirely to a lack of evidence.
This includes the idea that Russia “hacked” the 2016 election, thereby giving Trump the victory. It’s a theory that many Democrat leaders and left-wing Americans believed for quite some time.
However, nobody in Washington has managed to dig up evidence to prove this theory.
At this point, not as many people really believe Russia had a direct impact on the 2016 election. Most probably thought that idea was dead and buried, and not worth arguing about anymore.
But somebody forgot to tell White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who just repeated this claim during a recent briefing.
From Washington Examiner:
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Russian government ‘hacked our election here’ in the United States in 2016 in remarks during a briefing about combating disinformation.
The issue of conspiracy theories and other misinformation rages across the country, and reporters wanted to know what the White House is doing to combat the spread.
Psaki responded by saying that “the best antidote to misinformation is the truth.” This sounds logical and most people are going to agree with it, regardless of which side they’re on.
But then Psaki went and said something that raised a few eyebrows:
…if you look back at 2014, and frankly even 2016, when Russia invaded Ukraine and then in 2016 when they, you know, of course, hacked our election here, we did not do that, right?
We did not declassify information, and it was very hard to communicate to the public and to compete with, frankly, the disinformation war that Russia was waging.
This is the White House press secretary saying, “of course, [Russia] hacked our election here.”
She didn’t provide any evidence to support this claim, though she clearly issued it as a statement of fact. Actually, there’s more evidence to support the opposite:
U.S. Intelligence officials couldn’t find any evidence that the Kremlin was responsible for changing any votes, but they did discover that Russian agents had hacked Democratic emails in 2016.
Russia has denied this, but the officials claim Russian military operatives “hacked the DNC’s email systems,” then gave those emails to WikiLeaks.
In this way, a special counsel concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, but “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”
This is why many are asking Psaki to explain why she said Russia “hacked” the election.
It was no surprise that Russia had been responsible for messing with America in this fashion, but the Senate Intelligence Committee was very clear in their 2019 report. And as the Examiner stated:
…67% of Democrats surveyed in 2018 baselessly clung to the belief that that ‘Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President.’
Again, the Committee found no evidence that supported the theory that vote tallies were altered.
That’s why journalists and other politicos want answers: why did Psaki say Russia “hacked” the 2016 election when the findings have been in the books for years?
Democrat leaders often accuse Republicans and right-wing citizens of spreading false information and conspiracy theories, but then one of their own leaders appears to do the exact same thing.
Key Takeaways:
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki claimed recently that Russia “hacked” the 2016 presidential election.
- A Senate Committee couldn’t find any evidence that Russia had tampered with vote tallies.
- Russia reportedly interfered with Democrat emails in the WikiLeaks scandal, but there is nothing to show that Russia tampered with ballots.
Source: Washington Examiner
