Clinton won't rule out questioning Trump's legitimacy if deeper Russia interference proven

Hillary Clinton will not rule out questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 US presidential election if there is new information on deeper Russian interference than what is currently known. PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON - US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said she cannot not rule out challenging the legitimacy of Donald Trump's election victory if it is found that the Russian interference was deeper than currently known.

The former Democratic contender told a radio interviewer on Monday(SEP18) there's no doubt the Russians influenced the election in favour of the Trump campaign.

But she also admitted that there is no obvious way to challenge

"I don't know if there's any legal constitutional way to do that. I think you can raise questions," she told National Public Radio (NPR) interviewer Terry Gross.

She pointed to Mr Trump's call during the election campaign for Russia to hack her emails.

"He 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," she said. "There's no doubt they influenced the election: We now know more about how they did that".

Mrs Clinton was appearing on National Public Radio (NPR) promoting her book, "What Happened," which details her campaign and election loss. Two investigations, one by the US Congress and one by a Special Prosecutor, are underway into alleged ties between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials.

Mrs Clinton claimed that if positions were reversed and she had lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College majority - and had learned of Russian influence in the campaign - as president she would have demanded an investigation even if it disadvantaged her.

"I would've set up an independent commission with subpoena power and everything else".

Asked by the NPR interviewer if she would completely rule out questioning the legitimacy of this election if it was learned that the Russian interference in the election was even deeper than now known, she replied: "No, I wouldn't rule it out".

Mrs Clinton referred to the Kenya Supreme Court's decision to overturn the recent presidential election result, saying the US had no such provision in law.

And she called for the abolition of the Electoral College that delivered a majority to Mr Trump after he won key battleground states.

"I think that's an anachronism. I've said that since 2000".

Mrs Clinton accused the media of focusing too little on the alleged Russian hacking of the emails of her campaign leader, John Podesta, claiming the cache was released to take attention away from an audio tape that revealed Mr Trump boasting in 2005 of his sexually aggressive tactics.

"The press fell for it," she told NPR.

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