‘This is a scam’: Donald Trump blasts Jill Stein’s recount effort

 President-elect Donald Trump denounced former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on Friday for her campaign to recount the votes in three states.

“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” Trump said in a statement released by his transition team.

“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein … to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount,” Trump said.

Stein has been raising millions of dollars to initiate recounts in the three states where the vote was closest during the presidential election: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. But she has also had a shifting fundraising target, and her campaign has raised its goal from $5 million to $7 million as money has poured in.

Experts say there is virtually no chance of Stein’s campaign overturning the outcome of the Electoral College. But the effort has heightened tensions that were already high because of Democrat Hillary Clinton’s overall victory in the popular vote.

The Obama administration on Friday dismissed the notion that widespread hacking could have influenced the election’s outcome, the New York Times reported. The White House said the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

Stein filed for a recount in Wisconsin on Friday and indicated that she intends to do the same in Michigan and Pennsylvania next week. The Clinton campaign’s lawyer, Marc Elias, has said that his team will “participate” in the Wisconsin recall process, as well as those in Michigan and Wisconsin, should Stein initiate recounts there.

View the full Trump statement below:

“The people have spoken and the election is over, and as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night, in addition to her conceding by congratulating me, ‘We must accept this result and then look to the future.’

“It is important to point out that with the help of millions of voters across the country, we won 306 electoral votes on Election Day — the most of any Republican since 1988 — and we carried nine of 13 battleground states, 30 of 50 states, and more than 2,600 counties nationwide — the most since President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount. All three states were won by large numbers of voters, especially Pennsylvania, which was won by more than 70,000 votes.

“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing.”