Monday on CNN’s “Newsroom,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said Moscow helped Trump win the Electoral College.
Partial transcript as follows:
COSTELLO: Should President-elect Trump meet with Vladimir Putin ASAP?
SHERMAN: I don’t know about ASAP. Obviously they should meet at some point. it’s an important country.
COSTELLO: What do you suppose the conversation will be like?
SHERMAN: Well, there might be a private thank you, But I don’t think that will be reported to the press, but we have a host of issues to discuss with the Russians, and whether it’s Syria, Ukraine, the Baltic States, et cetera, et cetera.
COSTELLO: You have both the Kremlin and the president-elect describing this election hack investigation by U.S. intelligence services, a witch hunt, Although it seems that some members of Trump’s team now say that Russia was indeed behind the hacking. So what does that say to you?
SHERMAN: We’ve known Russia was behind the hacking for many months. I’m surprised that there wasn’t a reaction against Trump from his own base. The only bit of new information now is the intelligence services are confirming what everybody obviously knew, which is not only was Russia behind the hacks — that was widely reported — but that their purpose was to help Trump. You look at what they revealed, what effect it had in the campaign, when they revealed it and anybody in politics for a year or two would say these leaks were designed to help Trump win. Democrats were overconfident and didn’t want to rock the boat, didn’t want to make as big a deal out of this as it was.
COSTELLO: Some Democrats suspect Trump himself was working in cahoots with Russia. Do you believe that?
SHERMAN: We’ll never know. I would think not. There’s little reason for them to have done a highly dangerous strategy meeting. The fact is that in the campaign Trump said things that would have hurt him just a little bit with American voters, but helped him with the Electoral College votes that are controlled in Moscow. And Moscow returned the favor. The fact that — I would assume they didn’t do a secret meeting or secret found call doesn’t change that.
COSTELLO: When you say Moscow controlled the electoral college — that’s not true.
SHERMAN: No they don’t. But look the Hillary campaign made many errors. Trump made many of errors. There were dozen of factors more important than this in the Campaign . But had these leaks not come out, it’s hard to think that Hillary wouldn’t have gotten another hundred thousand votes in the upper Midwest.
(h/t Grabien)
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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