DISINFO: Russian collusion hoax pushed to excuse for Clinton's loss, election fraud
SUMMARY
Russia did not interfere in the US political system. Allegations of collusion were made up to excuse the election loss of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, as well as to deflect public attention from instances of election fraud and corruption.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denying Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Before the Mueller report was published, Russian meddling in the 2016 election had already been established by US intelligence agencies. Thus, the Special Investigation was primarily concerned with "whether any Americans […] joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election" (p.2).
Robert Mueller makes clear in his report that "collusion" is not a legal concept under US federal law, and that gathering evidence thereof would have fallen outside the scope of the special counsel investigation (p. 2). The report does, in fact, identify "numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign" (p. 9).
Given its focus on the criminal component of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential poll, Mueller's team did not aim to assess the impact of these campaigns on US voter behaviour. The investigation ascertained that "Russia's two principal interference operations […] violated US criminal law" (p. 9) and were carried out in "sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1), noting that 13 Russian nationals implicated in these operations have been charged with "conspiracy to defraud the United States" (p. 174).
The claim that the meddling allegations were used to excuse Hillary Clinton's loss defies both time and logic. Efforts by Moscow to hurt the Clinton campaign were reported already in June 2016, some five months before her electoral defeat. The initial FBI probe into Russian interference operations was launched in late July 2016. It is therefore unclear how these revelations were meant to "excuse" Clinton's performance before election day, seeing as she commanded a decisive polling lead over Trump right up until 8 November.
Voter fraud in the United States is a non-issue. Out of 136,669,276 ballots cast on 8 November, a grand total of four were identified as fraudulent. None of the four votes was included in official tallies.
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