When he was running the U.S. Senate in 2012, Harry Reid asserted, without presenting evidence, that an anonymous source had told him that Republican nominee Mitt Romney was a tax cheat. “So, the word is out that he has not paid any taxes for 10 years,” the majority leader declared from the Senate floor. “Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.”
It was a classless move from a classless politician. As it turned out, his comment didn’t bear any relation to reality. In reality, it turned out that Romney paid millions of dollars in taxes each year and gave a significant amount to charity.
Asked years later if he had any regrets about the dastardly attack, Reid replied, “Romney didn’t win, did he?”
A lot has changed since 2012. Back then, Romney proudly accepted Donald Trump’s endorsement for president. Also back then, Democrats mocked the Republican nominee for arguing that Russia posed a serious threat to America. But one thing has held constant: Even in retirement, Reid is behaving like a dishonest weasel by making outrageous assertions that he cannot back up.
In a new book, Reid has now declared there’s “no question” that Russian hackers tampered with vote totals in 2016.
“I think one reason the elections weren’t what they should have been was because the Russians manipulated the votes. It’s that simple,” Reid said. “It doesn’t take a math expert to understand that by changing a few votes, the outcome will be different. So, I have no doubt.”
There are multiple variations of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and Reid is no stranger to them. A week before the 2016 election, in a letter accusing James Comey of breaking the law by revealing that the FBI was looking into Hillary Clinton’s emails, Reid also claimed, “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”
Of course, we know how that story ends — with years of investigation by Robert Mueller failing to establish any conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to swing the election.
But as inaccurate as the Trump-Russia collusion narrative ended up being, the idea that Russian hackers were actually able to tap into voting systems to change vote counts is pure tinfoil hat territory.
While the Mueller report offered evidence that the GRU, the Russian intelligence unit, “targeted individuals and entities involved in the administration of the elections” and was able to hack into a database containing information on Illinois voters, there was no suggestion that actual vote totals were tampered with.
Similarly, a report by the Select Committee on Intelligence found that “the Russian government directed extensive activity, beginning in at least 2014 and carrying into at least 2017, against U.S. election infrastructure at the state and local level.” However, it also made clear that “the Committee has seen no evidence that any votes were changed or that any voting machines were manipulated.”
The Senate report noted that “while the Committee does not know with confidence what Moscow’s intentions were, Russia may have been probing vulnerabilities in voting systems to exploit later. Alternatively, Moscow may have sought to undermine confidence in the 2016 U.S. elections simply through the discovery of their activity.”
In other words, there’s no actual evidence to support Reid’s wild assertion that Russia actually was able to tamper with vote totals in U.S. elections. It’s wildly irresponsible. But then again, it’s par for the course for Reid.
