(photo: AP)
By Harvey Wasserman
A petition asking the Electoral College not to vote on the next president until a full investigation is done of Russian interference in the 2016 US election can be signed here.
Why?
Because according to the New York Times and the Washington Post and other mainstream media sources, the Central Intelligence Agency has confirmed substantial evidence that the government of Russia may have hacked this election.
But at least one top-ranked Republican leader—-US Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC)—-agrees.
The Agency says it has “high confidence” the Russians meant to help make Donald Trump president.
Trump is now attacking the Agency, The hacking, he told Time Magazine, ““could be Russia, it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
As the CIA has reported it, such foreign meddling in an American election is unprecedented—-and illegal. If Trump or any of his staff or associates conspired with the Russians to thus win the US Presidency, it would clearly be an impeachable offense. The legal ramifications would ignite a Constitutional crisis even before Trump could take office.
Meanwhile, preliminary citizen-funded attempts to require recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are under continual attack from well-funded Trump interventions. The recounts have been spearheaded by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Support can be contributed here.
Trump claims three million people illegally voted in 2016. But he’s relentlessly sabotaged recounts in three states that could decide the Electoral vote.
In those and many other states, massive disenfranchisement, inconsistencies, irregularities, targeted machine breakdowns and more have already been uncovered.
More than enough 2016 votes were cast on hackable black box electronic voting machines to flip the outcome of the Electoral College vote. As has been widely reported, those machines could have been hacked by computer experts from Russia. Until that possibility is also fully investigated, no Electoral College vote should proceed.
The Clinton campaign and Democratic party have sent legal observers but no tangible support for these recounts, These new revelations about Russian intervention make them more critical than ever. A petition asking Clinton’s tangible support for the recounts can be signed here: www.solartopia.org.
The CIA’s evidence indicates Russia hacked internal Democratic National Committee Party emails indicating party leaders conspired to deny the nomination to US Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT). The revelations led to the resignation of DNC Chair Deborah Wasserman (no relation) Schultz.
Trump has repeatedly urged the Russians to hack and release Clinton’s own emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” from Clinton’s email servers, he has said. But he’s denied conspiring with the Russians. Clinton was also slammed by FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that the Bureau was investigating an aide’s emails.
As the Times reports, an October report issued by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson says the DNC hack “had to have been approved at the highest levels of the Russian government.”
But the Times says that “until now, intelligence findings have been scattered in fragmentary reports”. On Friday, December 9, White House aide Lisa Monaco said “we may have crossed into a new threshold here.”
President Obama wants the investigation done before he’s slated to leave office on January 20. The Electoral College is currently scheduled to vote on December 19.
But the Electors should not certify anyone implicated in an impeachable offense. Nor should it entrust him, once president, to act on or make public a report that might indict him of one.
President Obama should require the CIA to complete and release this report before December 19. The Electoral College should not vote until it can be fully examined.
Nor should the Electoral College certify an outcome prior to a full recount of an election in which more than enough votes were cast on hackable electronic machines to flip the outcome, and where the presumptive winner still claims more than three million were fraudulent.
—————
Harvey Wasserman co-wrote (with Bob Fitrakis) THE STRIP & FLIP SELECTION OF 2016: FIVE JIM CROWS & ELECTRONIC ELECTION THEFT, at freepress.org and solartopi