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link to www.bloomberg.com]
Hillary Clinton’s campaign will participate in vote recounts of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan if they take place, drawing a rebuke from Donald Trump’s team that the Democrat is being a “sore loser” and part of a “ridiculous” effort.
If Green Party candidate Jill Stein initiates recounts in those states as she intends, the Clinton campaign “will participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias said Saturday in a post on the blogging website Medium.com. He added that he doesn’t expect the action to overturn Trump’s election.
Trump hit back, saying in a Saturday night tweet: “The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated and demoralized” Democrats.
Earlier, the president-elect focused on Stein, not Clinton, in a response. “The people have spoken and the election is over, and as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night, in addition to her conceding by congratulating me, ‘We must accept this result and then look to the future,”’ he said in a statement.
Kellyanne Conway, who was Trump’s campaign manager and is now a senior adviser, was less conciliatory. “What a pack of sore losers,” she said in a statement. “After asking Mr. Trump and his team a million times on the trail, ‘Will HE accept the election results?’ it turns out Team Hillary and their new BFF Jill Stein can’t accept reality.”
“Rather than adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding and wishing the winner well, they’ve opted to waste millions of dollars and dismiss the democratic process. The people have spoken. Time to listen up. #YesYourPresident,” Conway said.
‘Fill Her Coffers’
Trump noted he had won 306 electoral votes on Nov. 8, to Clinton’s 232, the best showing for a Republican since 1988, and the most counties since 1984.
“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” he said. “All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes.”
Stein said on her website that she’s raised more than $5.7 million for her recount effort so far, with a $7 million goal. The funds already raised will cover costs in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, she said.
“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” Trump added.
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