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Trump accuses Clinton of 'criminal enterprise in rigged' polls

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Press Trust of India Washington
Donald Trump has accused Hillary Clinton of running a "criminal enterprise" to turn the US government into a vehicle for her personal profit and creating conditions for a "rigged" election that also has media support to "poison" voters' minds.

In the wake of thousands of emails released by WikiLeaks on the 68-year-old Democratic presidential nominee Clinton and her team, the 70-year-old Republican leader told his supporters in Wisconsin that the national media is an "extension" of her campaign.

"Remember, we are competing in a rigged election - the media is trying to rig the election by giving credence to false stories that have no validity and making it front page news, only to poison the minds of the American voters.
 

"The media is an extension of the Clinton Campaign, as WikiLeaks proved - Hillary even got the questions and answers in advance of a major debate," he said.

Trump claimed that the magnitude of WikiLeaks are worse than that of Watergate. "And we're going to put an end to it on November 8th (the date of the polls)," he said.

"Clinton cronies have sacrificed your security, your family's safety, and your country's safety as though it meant nothing at all," he said.

A series of emails shows top officials in the Clinton campaign scheming to take massive sums of money from foreign lobbyists, he added.

"One of the emails from a top Hillary official said, quote, "take the money!!" with two exclamation points. This is money bundled by people registered as lobbyists on behalf of foreign governments.

Calling Clinton as the "most corrupt person ever" to run for President, Trump said the newly-released FBI documents show just how deep the corruption goes.

"We are witnessing a criminal enterprise that has turned our government into a vehicle for Clinton's personal profit at your expense. But it gets even worse. The FBI documents show that Under-Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy made the request for altering classification as part of a "quid pro quo". This is felony corruption. Under-Secretary Kennedy needs to resign," he demanded.

He said a new report from the Center for Public Integrity shows that 96 per cent of the so-called journalists and reporters who donated this cycle gave their money to Clinton. "They even want to try and rig the election at the polling booths, where so many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is all too common".

Quoting a Pew Research report, Trump said approximately 24 million - one of every eight-voter registrations in the US are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate. More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters and approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state, he said referring to the report.
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"Our system is also rigged by the donors, giving hundreds of millions to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The reason Hillary Clinton pushes for NAFTA, or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and for completely open borders, is because her international donors control her every move," Trump alleged.

"If we let the Clinton Cartel run this government, history will record that 2017 was the year America lost its independence. We will not let that happen. It is time to drain the swamp in Washington DC," he said.

The reality TV star also unveiled a set of strong anti-lobbying measures and said he will ask Congress to pass a campaign finance reform that prevents registered foreign lobbyist from raising money in US elections.

"I am going to ask Congress to institute its own 5-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs. I am going to expand the definition of lobbyist so we close all the loopholes that former government officials use by labeling themselves consultants and advisors when we all know they are lobbyists," he added.

Trump said he will issue a lifetime ban against senior executive branch officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.

Continuing with the criticism of his Clinton, Trump said the measures announced by him are part of his effort to curb corruption in the country.

"We are also going to end government corruption. Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to run for President," he said, adding that the newly-released FBI documents made public show just how deep the corruption goes.

"The under-Secretary of State, Patrick Kennedy, pressured the FBI to un-classify emails from Hillary's illegal server. In other words, the State Department was trying to cover-up Hillary's crime of sending classified information on a server our enemies could easily access by trying to reverse the classification," he alleged.

"This is a criminal conspiracy - a conspiracy that included Hillary's deleting and bleaching of 33,000 emails, the disappearance of 13 phones, 2 boxes of email evidence gone missing, and the destruction of laptops in a secret deal with the FBI.

"Remember, also, that Hillary lied under oath to Congress saying she had never sent or received classified information on her insecure sever, and pretended not to know that the letter "C" meant confidential information that was classified. Hillary then told the FBI she couldn't remember 39 times, and then, in written testimony last week under oath, said she couldn't remember another 21 times," he said.

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First Published: Oct 18 2016 | 2:57 PM IST

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