By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Friday, January 6, 2017, a joint session of Congress certified the results of the electoral college, validating the election of Donald Trump (R) as the next President of the United States.
US Representative Bradley Byrne (R-Montrose) said on social media, “Despite the efforts of some House Democrats to cause a stir and delay the process, Congress today officially certified the Electoral College results. One member of Congress even tried to challenge Alabama’s nine electoral votes saying that Russia changed the results in our state. That shows just how far they are willing to go to question the clear results of the Electoral College process.”
The intelligence community has released a report claiming that Russian hackers made a concerted effort to harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s (D) campaign and to aid Donald Trump.
US Representative Barbara Lee (D-California) objected to Trump’s certification. “I object because people are horrified by the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election,” she stated.
Six Democratic members of the House raised objections to Trump’s victory being certified, however, no US Senator would join them. Under the rules, an objection can only be heard if a member of each body joins in the objection.
A successful objection would have led to a debate and vote, but would have had little chance of denying Trump the presidency.
“Russia has a track record of working against our interests, and they clearly tried to meddle in our political system,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) said in a statement. “I strongly condemn any outside interference in our elections, which we must work to prevent moving forward… We must also be clear that there is no evidence that there was any interference in the voting or balloting process. We cannot allow partisans to exploit this report in an attempt to delegitimize the president-elect’s victory. Donald Trump won this election fair and square because he heard the voices of Americans who felt forgotten.”
President-elect Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th in Washington DC.
