Hillary Clinton: Casting doubt on 2020 election is ‘doing Putin’s work’

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said that elected officials who have suggested the 2020 presidential election was not conducted fairly are aiding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s effort to undermine America. 

“We never thought we had to worry about domestic enemies. We never thought we had to worry about people who didn’t believe in our democracy,” Clinton said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“And sadly, what we’ve seen over the last four years and particularly since the election is that we have people in our own country who are doing Putin’s work.” 

Clinton said some may be helping Putin cast doubt on democracy in a “witting or unwitting” way. 

“They are doing his work to sow distrust, to sow divisiveness, to give aid and comfort to those in our country who, for whatever reason, are being not only disruptive but very dangerous,” she continued. “I think Biden knows he has to work on both fronts. We have problems here at home.”

President Biden is in Geneva on Wednesday meeting with Putin for the first time since being elected. Former President Trump has repeatedly suggested the 2020 election was not conducted fairly and has falsely claimed widespread voter fraud led to a “rigged” election against him. 

Hundreds of Trump supporters, upset over false claims of a stolen election, stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, briefly stopping a joint session of Congress from certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory. 

Dozens of people were hurt and several died during the insurrection, and hundreds of arrests have been made in connection with crimes committed at the Capitol that day. 

Trump has reportedly, in recent weeks, been pressuring allies in conservative media to write and broadcast that the election was stolen from him and has been telling people close to him he believes he will be reinstated before the end of the summer. 

Ahead of his summit with Biden this week, Putin pointed to the Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol as an example of what he described as an authoritarian crackdown on dissent by federal officials. 

“We have a saying: ‘Don’t be mad at the mirror if you are ugly,’ ” Putin said during an interview with NBC News. “It has nothing to do with you personally. But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, ‘Why don’t you look at yourselves? You will see yourselves in the mirror, not us.’ ”

The Russian president has been asked about allegations he attempted to have a leading opposition figure assassinated. 

Clinton, who ran for president against Trump in 2016 and lost, said she has confidence in Biden to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. and praised his decision not to have a joint press conference with the Russian leader like Trump did in 2018. 

“The problem is that Trump has elevated him. Trump, from the very beginning, even when he was running in 2016, lifted up Russia,” Clinton said. “So it’s difficult to say let’s turn the clock back and go from where I thought we were when I left being secretary of State. …  I never thought I would see some of what we saw during the four years of the Trump administration.”