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Trump Predicts 'Constitutional Crisis' if Clinton Wins

by VOA News

   Donald Trump is portraying his Democratic opponent in the U.S.
   presidential race, Hillary Clinton, as someone so bogged down in legal
   problems that her election would trigger a constitutional crisis.

   Clinton told American voters Friday that they face a stark choice
   between a hopeful future, under her leadership, or dangerous
   uncertainty if Republican Trump triumphs in the nationwide vote on
   Tuesday.

   As the campaign entered its final days, opinion polls showed only a
   small and narrowing margin of popular support between the two
   candidates. Clinton still holds an edge over Trump nationally, because
   of her appeal among women and nonwhite voters, but her edge has shrunk
   since last month, making the election outcome less predictable less
   than 100 hours before Election Day.

   The candidates focused their attention Friday on their "battlegrounds"
   -- a handful of populous states where Clinton and Trump are closely
   matched, and where the the electoral votes they pick up could tip the
   election one way or the other.

   U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump (top) speaks at a campaign
   event, in Washington, D.C., Oct. 26 2016 and Hillary Clinton listens
   during their town hall debate in St. Louis, Missouri, Oct. 9, 2016, in
   a combination of file photos.

   Trump was in New Hampshire, which had been firmly in Clinton's column
   earlier but now is uncertain. The most recent political survey (Suffolk
   University/Boston Globe) this week found the race there was tied.

   If Clinton wins the election, Trump told his supporters at a rally near
   the Massachusetts border, "it would create an unprecedented
   constitutional crisis. What a mess."

   Referring to the continuing investigation of emails to and from Clinton
   during her time as secretary of state, Trump asserted, "She's likely to
   be under investigation for a long trial, concluding in a criminal
   trial. ... America deserves a government that can go to work on Day 1."

   Those charges, as well as Trump's call for his supporters to turn up as
   self-appointed "election observers" in certain areas of the country,
   prompted the Democratic Party to file a series of lawsuits Friday
   accusing the Republicans of trying to intimidate and confront Clinton
   supporters.

   Clinton faces no formal charges of wrongdoing arising from the email
   controversy. Most of those messages were stored on a private computer
   server that she controlled, instead of on U.S. State Department
   computers, and her campaign has repeatedly rebutted Trump's contention
   that she acted illegally.

   Meanwhile, the [1]State Department released over 1,200 pages of
   additional Clinton emails Friday, under terms of a prior agreement with
   the Justice Department. They included mostly administrative
   correspondence and duplicates of previously released material, but also
   some messages from 2010, when the State Department and President Barack
   Obama's administration were hit by the stunning and embarrassing
   disclosure of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables by the
   WikiLeaks group.

   A series of heavily edited emails -- blacked out in places where U.S.
   officials wanted to keep details and identifications anonymous --
   discussed how Clinton should approach world leaders in the wake of the
   WikiLeaks disclosures, as well as how hard she should go after
   WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

   Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, wrote in December 2010 that an ally
   had suggested Clinton formulate a response similar to: "We view this
   not as a 'clever game' of WikiLeaks but rather as a 'criminal act'
   against the United States of America. He [Assange] might think this is
   a clever game today but when he is prosecuted and if convicted he will
   move from being a clever cyber thief to a convicted criminal -- and
   will find out that's a whole different kind of game."

   Clinton and Trump disagreed sharply on the economy in their separate
   campaign appearances Friday, just hours after the U.S. Labor
   Department's monthly report showed unemployment dropped to 4.9 percent
   as employers added 161,000 more jobs.

   "I believe our economy is really poised to take off and thrive,"
   Clinton said at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

   Trump told his supporters the new government data show the U.S. economy
   is "an absolute disaster." He said the number of unemployed workers
   dropped because so many have stopped looking for work entirely, and
   thus are not counted by government statisticians.

   Financial markets seemed to agree with Trump, with all major indexes
   declining again on Friday. The S&P 500, a broad measure of overall
   economic performance and of investors' confidence, declined for the
   ninth straight day; for that benchmark index, the consecutive streak of
   declines is now the longest in more than 35 years.

   Voters fill in their ballots at a crowded polling station on North
   Carolina's first day of early voting for the general elections, in
   Carrboro, North Carolina, Oct. 20, 2016.

   A new national poll of voters' feelings about the election (The New
   York Times/CBS News) released Friday showed that a large majority of
   voters are "disgusted" with both major presidential candidates, and 80
   percent have been "repulsed" by the campaign thus far. Despite that,
   more than 36.5 million Americans have already cast their ballots --
   voting early in states that offer such an option, or casting absentee
   ballots -- according to the United States Elections Project.

   "These are two individuals that evoke very passionate emotions on both
   sides," said Democratic political strategist Penny Lee.

   "They're both beloved within their own base and both despised by the
   other, so that has caused for some real polarization and very strong
   points of view," Lee added in an interview with VOA. For those voters
   who have not yet decided whom to support, she said, "the challenge is
   determining between two unpopular candidates which one will actually be
   the better president."

   David Almacy, a former White House staffer for former Republican
   President George W. Bush, told VOA the candidates still have some
   convincing to do in the waning days of the presidential campaign.
   Because of the strong divide between Trump and Clinton, he added, those
   voters who have remained silent about their political preferences are
   an untapped source of support for whoever can win them over.

   Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a
   campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan, Nov. 4, 2016.

   In that vein, Clinton told undecided voters Friday that Trump's history
   of insulting people did not start when he launched his presidential
   campaign.

   Speaking in the swing state of Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate
   recalled some of Trump's previous forays into politics, long before his
   presidential ambitions crystallized. "He took out a full-page ad [in a
   major newspaper] in 1987 to insult [Republican] President Reagan, so he
   has been an equal opportunity insulter," Clinton said to cheering
   supporters in Pittsburgh.

   Nevertheless, Almacy added: "I do think there is going to be a
   percentage of those who may not choose to vote because of their
   distaste for what we've seen over the past two years."

References

   1. https://foia.state.gov/Search/Results.aspx?collection=Nov04_2016