Claim: Hollywood star Bette Midler is promoting the idea that Hillary Clinton has never questioned election results. In a post on X on Sunday, the actress wrote: “Can you imagine what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had claimed the election was stolen?”
Verdict: Misleading if not completely false.
Bette Midler phrased her post as a question — a seemingly crafty tactic to hinder fact checkers. But her motive is clear: she wants people to believe that Hillary Clinton has never cast doubt on the outcome of an election.
Can you imagine what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had claimed the election was stolen?
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) May 19, 2024
In reality, Hillary Clinton was a key figure behind the Russia collusion claims, which sought to undermine the 2016 election by alleging that then-candidate Donald Trump secretly collaborated with Russia to manipulate the results.
Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager testified that she personally approved her campaign’s plans in late 2016 to promote allegations of a connection between Trump and Russia. She even posted the accusations on Twitter in a message that remains online.
Her campaign was responsible for the infamous Trump dossier — also referred to as the Steele dossier — which was leaked to Buzzfeed News and was published ten days before Trump assumed office. The dossier, which accused Trump of being a Russian asset, was found to be entirely untrue.
Due to her actions, the mainstream news media spent much of Trump’s term fixating on “Russiagate,” with some journalists even winning Pulitzer Prizes for their coverage.
But, as reported, the Durham report eventually cleared former President Donald Trump of colluding with Russia.
In a 2019 interview with CBS’ Sunday Morning, Hillary Clinton labeled then-President Trump an “illegitimate president.” She added: “I know that he knows that this [the 2016 election] wasn’t on the level.”
