The biggest lies of the Trump–Russia scandal are those that get repeated most frequently. One is that there’s no evidence of collusion. The second is that nothing Russia did affected the outcome of the election. Among those who have repeated that second claim most frequently, is Mike Pence.
“Irrespective of efforts that were made in 2016 by foreign powers, it is the universal conclusion of our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any impact on the outcome of the 2016 election,” Pence said at an event hosted by Axios, a claim he later repeated.
The trouble with Pence’s statement is … everything. Not only has there been no universal announcement from the intelligence community that Russia’s actions didn’t contribute to the outcome of the election, there hasn’t been such a statement from any member of the intelligence community. And this time at least, Pence was called out on his lie.
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No, Mr. Vice President, that’s false. The Intelligence Community reached no conclusion as to whether Russia’s actions had a determinative effect on the election’s outcome. For you and the President to continue saying it did, gravely misrepresents their work. https://t.co/xa5MA2GOPA
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 14, 2018
The only universal announcement the intelligence community has made is the one that expressed their belief that Russia was behind stealing the private Democratic information that was later disseminated on Wikileaks—information which Donald Trump “loved” and which he used heavily in his speeches and rallies in the last month of the campaign. The intelligence community has made no statement about how that, or Russian social media bots, or Russian false news sites, or Russian-sponsored ads, or any other action, might have impacted the election results.