Hillary Clinton said she would not rule out questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election between her and Donald Trump if it’s revealed that Russian interference goes further than currently known.
Clinton made the comments during an interview on NPR that ran on Monday. When asked if she would “completely rule out” questioning the election’s legitimacy, Clinton said she wouldn’t, adding that she believed what has happened is unprecedented.
“No, I wouldn’t rule it out,” Clinton said, later adding: “We have no such provision in our country. And usually, we don’t need it.”
Clinton’s comments come as investigations into how much Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and whether members of Trump’s campaign worked with the country to enact its plans, continues to evolve and grow. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is leading the Department of Justice’s Russia probe, while committees in both houses of Congress are pursuing their own inquiries.
“[Trump] knew they were trying to do whatever they could to discredit me with emails, so there’s obviously a trail there, but I don’t know that in our system we have any means of doing that, but I just wanted to add to the point you made,” Clinton said, “there’s no doubt they influenced the election: We now know more about how they did that.”
In a statement after the interview, Clinton’s spokesman Glen Caplin told CNN Clinton has “said repeatedly the results of the election are over but we have to learn what happened.”
“I would hope anyone in America concerned about the integrity of our democracy would feel the same way if we got there. But we’re not,” Caplin said, according to CNN. “Right now, Bob Mueller and several congressional committees are investigating to what extent the Russians impacted our election and who exactly helped them do so.”
You can read a transcript of Clinton’s interview with NPR here.