As many of us know a scandal can be defined as any action or event that has occurred and is viewed as morally and or legally wrong. A scandal usually leads to people being upset and can cause and uproar in the public eye and society. It is important to understand the definition of a scandal in order to comprehend the significant outrage of the 2016 presidential election. The 2016 election came down to two candidates Hillary Clinton and the current president Donald Trump.
In order to understand why the 2016 presidential election scandal occurred it is important to know the history and background of the election. The presidential election was held on November 8th, 2016 where Americans voted for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was representing the Democratic Party and Donald trump was representing the Republican Party. Leading up to the election both Clinton and Trump campaigned and debated on many similar topics.
Hillary Clinton is a politician and ambassador who was a former First Lady of the United States of America in 1993 until 2001. Many people who run for president tend to have experience and background in the government and this was true for Clinton. She held two major roles in the United States government including Senator and Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton ran against a handful of others wanting to represent the Democratic Party, but Clinton was voted on and became the nominee for the Democratic Party of the 2016 presidential election.
Donald Trump who is the 45th and present-day President of the United States of America was the winner of the 2016 presidential election. Unlike Clinton, Trump was not individually involved in politics and the government before deciding to run for the 2016 presidency. He was very much involved and known for having great knowledge in the business world and was a real estate developer, along with a television celebrity. Trump is well known for his astonishing and successful real estate developments, including the Trump Tower located in New York City that serves as the headquarters for The Trump Organization. Trump was voted on and became the candidate for the Republican Party of the 2016 presidential election, which led to him receiving the popular vote and winning the 2016 presidency.
Along with knowing the history and background of the election, it is also important to have knowledge about Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump as politicians in order to understand why the scandal outrage occurred and is still talked about today. As Clinton and Trump belong to and represent different sides of politics, one being a democrat and the other a republican, it is important to be familiar with their opposing views on specific and popular subject matter. With the understanding of their opposing views it will allow one to have awareness of the political outrage that had and continues to have the government and society talking today.
Some of the major issues that are constantly being argued and debated on between democrats and republicans include; immigration, gun control, abortion, and health care. Clinton believes that immigrants should be embraced in America and should not be viewed or treated poorly and are to not be forgotten about, whereas Trump wants to enforce a stricter immigration process and build a wall to decrease the rate of immigrants crossing the border illegally. Clinton’s stance on gun control is to implement tighter and stricter gun regulations, while Trumps stance is to also implement a stricter process to purchasing guns along with establishing a concealed-carry permit that is valid in all 50 states. Trump wants to create a concealed-carry permit that is valid in all 50 states in order for Americans to have the right to self-defense at all times. Clinton’s position on abortion is to make it accessible in a safe a legal way, Trump feels strongly about not legalizing abortion due to his previous encounters with those wanting to have an abortion but deciding not to, along with his religious background. Lastly, Clinton feels that health care that is affordable should be an essential right of humans, Trump debated to abolish Obamacare and replace it with a non-individual mandated form of health care. Although these are just a few of the major differing views of Clinton and Trump that have been constantly debated, they also debated many more major issues throughout the 2016 presidential election process.
Now that we have a basic and broad understanding of who Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are and their views on major issues that are debated on a daily basis in today’s society, we can better understand the 2016 presidential election scandal that took place. The scandal dates back to September of 2015 when talk of the hacking began. The hacking of the 2016 presidential election was a scandal that involved Russian hackers compromising government computers to target the Democratic Party.
The hacking of the 2016 presidential election began when the FBI came in contact with the Democratic National Committee’s help desk, warning the IT department of one computer at the time that had been conceded by Russian hackers. Throughout the following months in 2015 the FBI continued to reach out to the Democratic National Committee to warn them of the reoccurring cases of their computers transferring government information to Russia. Management of the Democratic National Committee claimed to have not received word of the computers being conceded by Russian hackers, which stirred up conversations and was the spark to the on-going debate.
Russian hackers were said to be encouraged by Donald Trump to become involved with private information of the Democratic National Committee in order to gain more votes and become more popular in the eyes of American voters. The Russian hackers began hacking Clinton’s emails and email accounts of the campaign, which led to hacking into computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. These actions of the Russian hackers didn’t stop there, they continued the scandal by using online facades and websites including Guccifer 2.0 DCLeacks and WikiLeaks in order to release obtained emails and documents from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton. Many people believe that the Russian hackers were out to get the Democratic Party in order to increase Trumps chances of winning the 2016 presidential election because they were only hacking democrats and not republicans.
The hacking was done by Russians making repeated attempts to get into major United States institutions including the White House and state departments before the 2016 presidential election process even took place. While the 2016 presidential election was taking place the Russian hackers were digging deep into government emails and documents through computer software. One way that the Russian hackers were trying to get into major United States institutions and obtain private information was by sending out deceiving emails in hopes that people would click on them, which would give Russian hackers access to victim’s computers.
As many of us know hacking is an illegal action and those who hack usually have a motive as to why they are committing this illegal act. Throughout this scandal the special counsel investing the scandal accused 12 Russian hackers that were involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. There was one motive the Russians had behind hacking the 2016 election, and that was to get inside the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations of the democratic party in order to expose negative things about them to aid the chances of Trump winning the 2016 presidential election.
There are many problems with the concept of hacking and many complications occurred through this scandal outrage. Hacking can be defined as the use of technology such as a computer to gain unauthorized access to data and information in technology systems. There are many problems that can arise and come about from hacking such as a decrease in privacy, a damaged reputation, and loss of information, along with many other problems.
If a company, person, or business experiences hacking they will lose information that may be important and private to them. A loss of information will also lead to victims experiencing an invasion of their privacy due to someone having access to their information that was held in the systems being hacked. If a company or business experiences hacking often it may cause them to have a damaged reputation which could turn customers away because they don’t trust the company’s systems and therefore don’t want to provide frequently hacked companies and business with important and private information.
All of these problems can be related to the 2016 presidential election. The Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign both experienced hacking which came with many problems. They both loss important and private information, along with a decrease and invasion of privacy, and most importantly a damaged reputation. I believe that the most important problem that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign had to face was the damage of reputation. I believe this because for Hillary Clinton who was the nominee for the Democratic Party, she was targeted and viewed as someone who was sneaking and hiding information. This damaged her reputation and could have played an important factor as to why she lost the 2016 presidential election against Donald Trump.
During the hacking of the 2016 presidential election Clinton was also being investigated for her family’s private email server that they were using for official and professional communications when they should have been using official state department email accounts on a secured federal server. This could be a significant way as to how the Russian hackers were able to obtain so much information about her campaign. Clinton tried to deny that she was involved in such activity but the emails were written proof and didn’t help her case that she was trying to justify.
While the Russian hackers were being investigated for the hacking of the 2016 presidential election, the FBI found them to also be involved with conspiracy, identity theft, and money laundering. Although this scandal brought such an outrage to society, it was confirmed to have never impacted the results of the 2016 presidential election other than the damaged trust and reputation that democrats had for Clinton as the democrat nominee. The 2016 presidential election came to an end with Clinton winning the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes. Trump won 30 states and the decisive Electoral College with 304 electoral votes whereas Clinton only had 277 electoral votes, therefore Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States of America.
When the allegations of Russians interference with the 2016 presidential election surfaced, an outrage broke out in Washington which made people question and raise more investigations in Donald Trump’s campaign. Many people believed that Trump had contact with the Russian hackers and encouraged them to interfere with the election in order to increase his chances of winning the presidential election. When the investigation of Russia’s illegal actions took place, it was said that Trump made it seem as though Russia’s actions were not as bad as they seemed. Many believe that he said this because the Russian hackers were ultimately helping Trump’s side during the presidential election by exposing negative information about Clinton. Later in the investigation process of the hacking of the 2016 presidential election, even though denied by Trump and those involved in his campaign, those investigating made Trump’s administration official and campaign advisor plead guilty for lying to federal agents about communicating with Russian nationals.
During the 2016 presidential election those who were investigating the hacking and officially accused Russia for interfering in the election included the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency. They ultimately accused Russia and their government for developing a sophisticated campaign of their own to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and to overall help Trump win the election. Although Trump didn’t feel as though the hacking was as destructive as others such as officials were making it out to be, he finally stated that he believes that Russia was the one hacking but also followed his statement by stating that he feels as though our government also gets hacked by other countries and people.
Although Russia was accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hilary Clinton’s campaign, officials and authorities do not feel as though the Russian hackers tampered with the number of votes that each nominee received. Even though they didn’t tamper with the votes they do believe Russian hackers were scanning the voting systems for weaknesses in order to obtain more private information.
Many people questioned whether or not President Trump would be impeached due to the hacking of the 2016 presidential election. People thought this because they were unsure if the hacking resulted in skewed vote counts. In an article written by….. it states that in the United States Constitution the president and other government officials will be removed from office by impeachment for the following; conviction of treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. With this being said and Donald Trump who is currently our 45th president the impeachment didn’t take place because investigators were not able to prove that the kind of communication that Trump and others involved in his campaign had with the Russian hackers was considered to be convictive behavior.
Due to the outrage that the Russian hackers created during the 2016 presidential election, there is still conversation about the election. With social media and strong political views that people have today many people still talk about the hacking of the 2016 presidential election and will continue to talk about it due to it being an outrage in America’s history. In the same article…. It states that experts believe that the investigations that have come about from this scandal could go on for many more months and even years. The article states that previous counsel investigations have taken over four years to complete. With this being said the investigations of this scandal are going to continue to be carried out until the right decision about how to hand the scandal comes to a conclusion.
Overall I believe that this scandal was historical and will continue to be talked about for years as an outrage in history. Even though this brought confusion and made things more intense during and after the 2016 presidential election, I believe that the United States government can act on this and use it as a learning lesson. I believe that the government can take this scandal and use it to improve, tighten, and create stricter security in order to prevent a scandal like this from happening again. They could implement stricter rules with email usage in order to ensure that no one is taking advantage of the government and engaging in illegal actions. The government can also pay closer attention to those involved in important and confidential issues, along with overall improving their computer and networking systems to make sure that no one can obtain government documents and private information.
