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.
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.
Just as with the “no evidence of collusion” statement, Pence, Trump, Sanders, and others seem to get away with the “no impact” statement on a regular basis, rarely receiving so much as a slight disagreement from the media.
The truth is not only has the intelligence agency not made any such declaration, they’ve steered clear of making any comment on how Russia’s activities might have affected the election out of an abundance of caution. The reason they’ve not made any such statement is that Russia’s actions clearly did impact the election. Donald Trump didn’t bring up Wikileaks in every speech and every rally because he thought it wouldn’t have an impact. And Russia wouldn’t have made the investment in ads, bots, and false news sites if they didn’t expect those actions to have an impact.
Whether Russia’s actions had a definitive impact … that’s harder to say. With a critical difference of only seventy thousand voters in a handful of states, it’s the carefully targeted ads and stories—which built on campaigning by Trump—certainly may have had enough impact to determine the outcome. But the intelligence community hasn’t reached that conclusion.
In fact, the only sure conclusion that can be draw is that Mike Pence, like the rest of the Trump White House, is an unapologetic liar.