A Democratic lawmaker said Friday the November presidential election “was rigged” in favor of Donald Trump, suggesting that Russia played a key role in the president-elect’s win.
Speaking on CNN, Rep. Jackie Speier, California Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Russia’s apparent meddling in the election — including a hack of Democratic National Committee email servers that some say helped push the election to Mr. Trump — is unprecedented and, in essence, amounts to the rigging of an election.
“If you remember during the campaign, it was Donald Trump who kept saying the electoral process was rigged,” she said. “As soon as he won, everyone dropped the term ’rigged.’ Well, it was rigged. And we need to recognize our system is not fail-safe. We must take steps to protect the electoral process, to protect the tallying of votes.”
She went on say it’s unclear just how much impact Russian influence may have had on the election, and that it may have been greater than Americans realize.
“I still don’t think we know for sure whether or not they were effective in doing more harm than has been established so far,” Ms. Speier said.
Mr. Trump this week conceded that Russia appears to have been behind the DNC email hack, though he also continues to question the U.S. intelligence community.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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