U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to agree with our perspective on Jill Stein's money-raising effort, lashing out this afternoon in an official statement calling her request for a recount of votes in Wisconsin a "scam" by the Green Party.
Until now, as AP reports, Trump had been ignoring Green Party nominee Jill Stein's fight to revisit vote totals in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin officials announced late Friday they are moving forward with the first presidential recount in state history.
"The people have spoken and the election is over," Trump declared Saturday. He added, "We must accept this result and then look to the future."
"This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount."
"This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what (Green Party leader) Jill Stein is doing."
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Official Statement:
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Why a "scam"? As a reminder, we detailed some mysterious changes during Stein's fundraising efforts. Apparently, the more money she raises the more expensive the recount effort becomes. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine we have the following snapshots from her fundraising page over the past couple of days:
November 24, 2016 at 3:46AM – In the beginning, Stein figured she needed a total of $2.5mm to fund her recount efforts. That figure included $2.2mm for the actual filing fees and presumably another $0.3mm for legal fees and other costs.
November 24, 2016 at 1:20PM – Then, just 12 hours later, after the cash just kept flowing in, Stein figured she needed at least another $2mm as her fundraising goal was raised to $4.5mm in total. Of course, the filing fees of $2.2mm didn't change but the "attorney's fees" apparently surged by about 300% and the total costs of the effort skyrocketed to $6-7mm.
November 25, 2016 at 6:11AM – Now, just this morning as Stein approaches $5mm in total donations, her overall fundraising goal has surged once again and now stands at $7mm.
So, with nearly $5mm raised so far, the question is no longer whether recounts will occur in WI, MI and PA but just how much Jill Stein will be able to drain from the pockets of disaffected Hillary supporters to fund her long-shot efforts.
via http://ift.tt/2fzE8Y0 Tyler Durden