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<\/a>The indictment<\/a> filed by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller against 13 Russians and a Kremlin-connected organization shows that the Russian interference with the U.S. presidential election was no mere prank.\u00a0 Its scale and tactics were such that it may well have contributed some votes to Donald Trump.\u00a0 But even if it did, that by no means takes away the legitimacy of his election.<\/p>\nThe Russian effort, according to the Mueller indictment, was a targeted, sophisticated attempt to prevent the election of Hillary Clinton and \u201cestablishment\u201d Republicans.\u00a0 In the primaries, this meant helping Bernie Sanders and helping Donald Trump by discrediting Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.\u00a0 In the general election, this meant helping Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
This does not mean there was collusion with his campaign.\u00a0 Trump had criticized American sanctions against Russia, which the Obama administration with the input of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had imposed because of Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine.\u00a0 So Russia had a motive for interfering on behalf of Trump.\u00a0 He need not have known anything about it.<\/p>\n
But the Russian investment in his campaign was considerable.\u00a0 If the budget for the operation was $1,250,000 per month, as the indictment claims, that would come to $15,000,000 per year.\u00a0 If the effort ran from 2014 to 2016, that would come to $45,000,000.<\/p>\n
According to this breakdown of campaign funds<\/a>, Trump raised $957.6 million for his election, including $543.4 million from the Republican party, $334.8 million from his own campaign, and $79.3 million from Super-PACS.<\/p>\n These figures do not include money spent by independent entities, such as the Russians, that did not give to the campaign as such.\u00a0 While chicken feed compared to the total spending on the campaign (including Clinton\u2019s much bigger purse of $1.4 billion), the Russian investment of $45,000,000 was nearly 58% as much as that of all of the Super-PACS.<\/p>\n Furthermore, according to the indictment, the Russians targeted the \u201cpurple states,\u201d<\/a> those with a closely-balanced mixture of Democrats and Republicans that could be tipped either way (the indictment mentioned specifically Florida, Virginia, and Colorado).<\/p>\n That the Russians concentrated their advertisements, rallies, and social media activity on those states that could actually swing the election demonstrates an actual intention to determine the election\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n Read this account of what the Russians did in Florida.<\/a>\u00a0 It concludes that \u201cthe operation in Florida, the nation\u2019s largest swing state, was in a class by itself.\u201d\u00a0 That includes organizing seemingly grass-roots \u201cFlorida Goes Trump\u201d rallies.<\/p>\n The Florida Goes Trump rallies were held in more than 20 cities across the state on Aug. 20, 2016. News releases touting the event were rife with grammatical errors and used language ripped from a traditional Trump stump speech.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to support our candidate and show the whole country that we must unite and make America great again!\u201d read a posting about the rallies. \u201cOn August 20, we want to gather patriots on the start of Floridian towns and cities and march to unite America and support Donald Trump!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That slightly-non-idiomatic English characteristic of non-native speakers was also evident in the social media barrage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to support our candidate and show the whole country that we must unite and make America great again!\u201d read a posting about the rallies. \u201cOn August 20, we want to gather patriots on the start of Floridian towns and cities and march to unite America and support Donald Trump!\u201d<\/p>\n Russian-linked Facebook group \u201cBeing Patriotic\u201d sent messages to its followers as it was planning the rallies, stressing the importance of winning Florida.<\/p>\n \u201cFlorida is still a purple state and we need to appoint it red,\u201d read the message, according to the indictment. \u201cIf we lose Florida, we lose America.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These rallies included a stunt that would be picked up and repeated at other non-Russian sponsored Trump events:\u00a0 having someone dress up like Hillary Clinton and putting her into a cage on a flat-bed truck, dramatizing the \u201cLock her up!\u201d chant.<\/p>\n Also, the Russians used social media to put out false rumors to Florida voters:<\/p>\n Beyond the rallies, the Russian scheme also used its social media reach to falsely tie Clinton to voter fraud in South Florida, a region with a long history of voting abnormalities.<\/p>\n Russian-linked Twitter accounts on Nov. 2, well into the state\u2019s early-voting period, blasted out a tweet saying voter fraud was occurring because \u201ctens of thousands of ineligible mail in Hillary voters are being reported in Broward County, Florida.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Could such efforts flipped the always crucial battleground state of Florida with its 29 electoral votes into the Trump column?\u00a0 Trump beat Clinton in Florida<\/a> with a 1.2% margin, a difference of about 113,000 votes.\u00a0 Could that many voters have changed their mind because of the rallies, advertising, social media commentary, and the false rumors put out by the Russians?<\/p>\n If campaign rallies, online advertising, and social media initiatives are not effective politically, why do the political parties and their candidates spend so much money on them?<\/p>\n Might the Russian operation, in such a close election, have tipped the balance in these battleground states to Trump?\u00a0 Might the Russians have actually made Donald Trump our president?<\/p>\n First of all, this is highly unlikely.\u00a0 Though Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won the Electoral College<\/a> by a fairly large margin, 304-227.\u00a0 In the 2000 election, the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore hinged on the outcome of Florida\u2019s hanging chads.\u00a0 But Florida was not critical to Trump, with his 77 electoral vote advantage.\u00a0Of the purple states mentioned in the indictment, only Florida voted for Trump.\u00a0 Virginia and Colorado voted for Clinton.\u00a0 Trump won because he was able to turn\u00a0Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states that had voted for the Democratic candidate for president since the 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n More to the point, even if the Russians did influence the way some Americans cast their votes\u2013in fact, even if they influenced enough voters to swing the election to Trump\u2013that would not negate the legitimacy of Trump\u2019s election.<\/p>\n We can never know the reasons why Americans chose to cast their vote for one candidate or the other.\u00a0 Who influenced them, what arguments they found persuasive, what ads had an impact on their thinking\u2013if any\u2013is irrelevant, as long as the voter made a free decision at the ballot box.<\/p>\n The law states that foreign governments may not get materially involved in our elections.\u00a0 Russian involvement was clearly not only a violation of American law, but a serious act of aggression against the United States of America, a sort of non-military invasion of our nation.<\/p>\n But unless the Mueller investigation can show that President Trump and his campaign knowingly conspired with the Russians\u2013and there has been no evidence of that as far as anyone has shown\u2013he has been duly elected to his office.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n