{"id":83309,"date":"2016-11-28T01:45:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T06:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=83309"},"modified":"2016-11-28T01:45:26","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T06:45:26","slug":"trump-assails-recount-push-claims-millions-voted-illegally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/11\/28\/trump-assails-recount-push-claims-millions-voted-illegally\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump assails recount push, claims millions voted illegally"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The president-elect himself launched a Twitter offensive that spanned more than 12 hours on Sunday, casting a shadow over the legitimacy of an election that he actually won. (Photo: Donald Trump\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK\u2014President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that \u201cmillions\u201d voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton’s nearly 2 million edge in the popular vote and returning to his campaign mantra of a rigged race even as he prepares to enter the White House in less than two months.<\/p>\n

Trump and his lieutenants assailed an effort \u2014 now joined by Clinton \u2014 to recount votes in up to three battleground states, calling the push fraudulent, the work of \u201ccrybabies\u201d and, in Trump’s estimation, \u201csad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president-elect himself launched a Twitter offensive that spanned more than 12 hours on Sunday, casting a shadow over the legitimacy of an election that he actually won.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,\u201d he tweeted in the afternoon before alleging in an evening tweet \u201cserious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California.\u201d Trump’s transition team did not respond to questions seeking evidence of the unfounded claims.<\/p>\n

There’s been no indication of widespread vote manipulation, illegal voting or hacking that materially affected the outcome one way or the other. It’s that very lack of evidence that suggests Trump is likely to prevail in recounts.<\/p>\n

Trump on Sunday tweeted part of Clinton’s concession speech, when she told supporters they must accept that \u201cDonald Trump is going to be our president,\u201d and snippets from her debate remarks, when she denounced the Republican nominee for refusing to say in advance that he would accept the Election Day verdict.<\/p>\n

This came on top of his saying it was a \u201cscam\u201d that Green Party nominee Jill Stein was revisiting the vote count in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and as of Wednesday, held a lead of almost 11,000 votes in Michigan, with the results awaiting state certification Monday. His Michigan margin was a hair’s breadth 0.22 per cent of the state’s votes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clinton leads the national popular vote by close to 2 million votes, but Trump won 290 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, not counting Michigan. She could conceivably tip the electoral balance in the remote event that all flipped to her in recounts.<\/p>\n

Trump returned to New York Sunday evening after spending Thanksgiving weekend at his West Palm Beach estate. His transition team said the president-elect had scheduled a series of meetings Monday with prospective administration hires.<\/p>\n

Among the jobs Trump has still yet to fill: secretary of state. Internal division over the position again spilled out into the open on Sunday as Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway voiced her concerns with the possibility of Romney landing such a significant position.<\/p>\n

Trump supporters \u201cfeel a bit betrayed that you can get a Romney back in there after everything he did,\u201d Conway said. \u201cWe don’t even know if he voted for Donald Trump. He and his consultants were nothing but awful to Donald Trump for a year.\u201d She added that she was \u201creflecting what the grassroots are saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker are among other prospects to serve as the country’s top diplomat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m all for party unity, but I’m not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position,\u201d Conway said.<\/p>\n

Trump’s incoming chief of staff, national party Chairman Reince Priebus, acknowledged that Romney would represent \u201ca team of rivals concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was mostly silent on the brewing recount effort until it became known that Clinton would join it, at least in Wisconsin. On Saturday, a day after Wisconsin officials said they would conduct the first presidential recount in the state’s history, Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias said: \u201cWe intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elias said Clinton would take the same approach in Pennsylvania and Michigan if Stein were to follow through with recount requests in those states.<\/p>\n

That loosened Trump’s tongue.<\/p>\n

\u201cHillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in,\u201d Trump tweeted Sunday. \u201cNothing will change.\u201d<\/p>\n

He quoted from her concession speech \u2014 \u201cWe owe him an open mind and the chance to lead\u201d \u2014 and he concluded: \u201cSo much time and money will be spent – same result! Sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

On NBC’s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d Conway said Stein, \u201cthe Hillary people\u201d and others supporting recounts have to decide whether they are going to back a peaceful transition \u201cor if they’re going to be a bunch of crybabies and sore losers about an election that they can’t turn around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priebus, on \u201cFox News Sunday,\u201d called the effort a \u201ctotal and complete distraction and a fraud and something that they should drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton’s lawyer said her team has been combing through the results since the election in search of anomalies that would suggest hacking by Russians or others and found \u201cno actionable evidence\u201d of an altered outcome. Moreover, Elias said, Trump has a vote lead even in the closest states that well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount.<\/p>\n

But \u201cwe feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump beat Clinton in Wisconsin by fewer than 22,200 votes, less than 1 per cent of votes cast. He won Pennsylvania by some 70,600 votes, just more than 1 percentage point over Clinton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK\u2014President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that \u201cmillions\u201d voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-steve-peoples","mauthors-calvin-woodward","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}