Gov. Granholm: Russians Aim to Rig Elections With Leaks
Former Michigan Governor and Hillary Clinton supporter Jennifer Granholm responded to the new documents released by WikiLeaks on the FOX Business Network’s Mornings with Maria.
Governor Granholm argued that the Russians want Donald Trump to be President and are using the leaked documents to influence voters.
“Donald Trump has become an unwitting and perhaps a witting agent of the Russian Federation. Last night, he talked at his rally about one of these leaked documents. Turns out according to Newsweek, last night posted that Kurt Eichenwald, who is a reporter with Newsweek, was furious that in that leaked group of documents was an email supposedly from Sidney Blumenthal, but was really Kurt Eichenwald’s words. In other words, the emails had been manipulated in these leaks to make the Clinton team look bad,” charged Granholm.
“I don’t know about that,” questioned FBN’s Maria Bartiromo.
“Bottom line is Donald Trump is using that for the purpose of gaining an advantage,” Granholm answered.
“Of course you’re going to use whatever you can use out there, but the truth is, when you look at the contents of it, Governor, Hillary Clinton’s campaign compiled a massive hit list file on her opponent Bernie Sanders calling into question his progressive bona fides on issues ranging from labor to guns to Wall Street according to this new trove of emails,” said Bartiromo.
“Maria, every single campaign including Bernie Sanders’ campaign, including Donald Trump’s campaign does opposition research on your opponents -- It happens all the time… The question is, none of that stuff is used,” she said.
“That’s right, good point,” said Bartiromo.
“The Clinton stuff was used very respectful of Bernie Sanders and it turned out the way it did,” added Granholm.
“Well they also question his religion, I mean come on,” replied Bartiromo.
“But those documents were leaked documents. Those were not documents that were used in the campaign. So you do opposition research and you choose to use what you find strategically. They didn’t use that stuff. So to be fair, those documents were being released because the Russian government wants Donald Trump, their agent, to be President,” retorted Granholm.
“Well we don’t really know that Russia’s behind this,” said Bartiromo.
“We do…The U.S. government last week in an unprecedented announcement said beyond a shadow of a doubt the Russians are hacking into all sorts of documents to influence this election and WikiLeaks is the vehicle through which these leaks appear,” said Granholm.
“Well we just saw the email exchange and WikiLeaks is pushing back on that notion,” Bartiromo responded.
“Of course they are,” said Granholm.
“WikiLeaks has very specifically outlined who they are. They sent the link to Brian Fallon and so again we don’t necessarily know that Russia’s behind this. A lot of people say maybe it’s somebody else in the Democratic Party, maybe it’s Bernie Sanders,” said Bartiromo.
“No, No, No. Who is Julian Assange? Started WikiLeaks. Where is Julian Assange? I mean he [has] very close ties to the Russians. This is not speculation, Maria. This is real. The Russians are influencing this because they want Donald Trump. Why do they want Donald Trump? Because as we know he has put forth policies that are very supportive of Putin. He has said things that are supportive of Putin,” she said.
“What is the policy that is supportive of Putin?” asked Bartiromo.
“Okay his team removed from the RNC platform a long standing effort to try to support the Ukraine if they were encroached upon. He believes that Putin and Assad should be let to go even in fact when we see there’s this massive civil war happening so that his tool, which is Assad, can have full reign over Syria. And he made that clear in the debate on Sunday,” she said.
“I don’t know, that’s very creative,” said Maria Bartiromo.
“No, it’s not creative, it’s just a fact,” answered Granholm.