FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee earlier this week that the FBI has an active investigation about possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service, successor to KGB) to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections. During the hearing President Donald Trump tweeted to his 16 million followers in response that the FBI had determined that the Trump Campaign was not involved with the Russians and that the Russian attempt to influence the US elections had not succeeded.
Comey said no such thing. Indeed, he indicated that he would take the investigation wherever it will lead. We already know that multiple U.S. intelligence agencies had long concluded that the Trump campaign was in repeated secret contact with a variety of Russian agents and with Wikileaks. Congressman Adam Schiff and his Democratic colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee presented a prosecutorial rendering of the involvement of Trump associates Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Carter Page ‘s involvement, contacts with the Russians and Wikileaks in a concerted effort to embarrass and weaken the Clinton campaign. Stone’s conspiratorial acknowledgement that he knew in advance of the timing and content of the leaks certainly suggests collusion with the Russians to undermine the American democratic system.
There is ample evidence not only to prove that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, but that the five-month “Chinese water torture” release of the Clinton campaign’s and John Podesta’s emails ultimately cost Secretary Clinton the election.
Let’s look at the numbers that are whispered about but never publicly acknowledged. I asked a number of respected pollsters – both Democratic and Republican - if the five-month Wikileak program had an effect on the outcome of the presidential race. The Democrats would say, “of course” but “”we can’t prove it after the fact. “ The Republicans would dismiss the importance of the effect, curiously almost always using the same language: “marginal, marginal not more than one or two points.”
OK. Let’s assume that the Republican “marginal effect” of the Trump-Russian campaign was indeed that only one per cent of voters who would have voted for Clinton switched to Trump. This one per cent shift would mean one less percentage point for Trump and one more percentage point for Clinton, an overall variance of two points.
With the Republican pollsters’ “marginal” one per cent shift (and resulting overall two point popular vote change) absent Russian interference Clinton would have won Michigan by 48.3% to 46.6% for Trump, Wisconsin 47.9% to 46.9, Pennsylvania 48.6% to 47.8% and Florida 48.8% to 48.1%, bringing the Clinton Electoral College victory to 307 (with Trump at 228).
And if the Russian impact was the two per cent that some have conjectured, then the impact would have been even more dramatic, with Clinton winning North Carolina 48.7% to Trump’s 48.5%, bringing the Clinton Electoral College victory to 322
A one point Russian effect would have resulted in Secretary Clinton winning the popular vote by 49.2% to Trump’s 45.1%, Her actual popular vote margin of three million votes would have jumped to six million votes, exceeding President Obama’s five million vote margin over Governor Romney by one million votes. If there were a two-point swing effect on results, it would have had Clinton’s popular vote margin hitting nine million votes, just short of President Obama’s ten million vote victory over Senator McCain in 2008.
So, in the end, the Russian-Wikileaks-Trump attack on American democracy that was “marginal, only one or two percent” turns out to be not so marginal at all. In fact, it was clearly determinative: President Hillary Clinton would now be in the White House, with all that would mean to America and to the world.