It’s been just over two weeks since Donald Trump became the President-Elect of the United States, and the outspoken and presumedly bigoted candidate has wasted no time ruffling the country’s feathers. As protestors across the country continue to voice their disgust with Trump’s ghoulish transition team and his hard stance on immigration, the man himself has even been letting down those who got him into office.
After spending the last critical months of his campaign promising to hire a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, Trump now seems to be going back on his unabashed promise to “lock her up”. Though his flip-flop might seem sensible in the eyes of many, most of his strongest supporters will likely be peeved by the sudden change of heart.
According to tweets from New York Times reporters Mike Grynbaum and Maggie Haberman, who recently met with the President-Elect, Trump claimed that prosecuting Clinton was “not something that I feel very strongly about." In addition, he stated that he doesn’t want “to hurt the Clintons” and that his opponent has already “suffered greatly in many different ways.”
The news of Trump’s about-face first came from his former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who claimed that his decision not to prosecute Clinton would send a strong message to fellow Republicans who have been calling for her head for years. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum are likely stunned from Trump’s full reversal from the anti-Clinton rhetoric that helped him win the White House.
All the while, the dismayed Hillary Clinton campaign may have been given a golden opportunity to challenge the results of the election. According to CNN, a number of highly regarded computer scientists are urging her campaign to call for a recount of vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. These computer scientists believe they may have found evidence that the votes in these three states were possibility manipulated or hacked in favor of Trump.
One of the experts calling on Clinton to demand a recount is J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society. According to Halderman, there was a questionable trend that showed Clinton performing considerably worse in counties that relied on electronic voting machines rather than paper ballots.
The group of computer scientists informed Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta about the possible manipulation, which showed that Clinton received 7% fewer votes in counties that utilize electronic voting machines. Though they didn’t find direct evidence of hacking, they think the interesting pattern should still be examined by an independent source.
Though neither the Clinton or Trump team have commented on the possible rigging yet, the news itself adds yet another layer of confusion and frustration to an election year that already seems fictitious in so many ways.
