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Dear Secretary Clinton,

I was a strong supporter of your campaign, and I am writing to say that I am deeply disappointed by your silence right now.

All your supporters worked very hard to elect you President because we were expecting you to lead us into a brighter future. Even if you were not the declared winner, 65 million voters trusted you enough to empower you with the leadership of this country.

Your silence now is an abdication of the leadership we entrusted you with. If you continue to sit on the sidelines, it will compromise our trust and respect for Democrats in future elections.

I understand, but do not accept, why you are silent. When Donald Trump started claiming the vote was going to be rigged, all of the major Democrats, including you, voiced your outrage that he dare question the trustworthiness of our elections.

He boxed you into a corner because you were expecting that his rhetoric was setting the stage for an attempt to invalidate the results when you won.

In retrospect, was he doing that strategically to keep your hands tied now for fear of being seen as a “sore loser” and having to retract your statements? What if you were outfoxed?

What we know already about the corruption of this election is very disturbing, yet it may just be the tip of the iceberg.

We know, for instance, that intelligence agencies are clear about Russians hacking the DNC and funding the spread of fake news, with ties to Vladimir Putin himself.

There are many lines of evidence that point to the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians, as well as suspicious business linkages. President Obama has called for a full investigation.

We have one of Putin’s closest allies in the West now nominated for Secretary of State. Is there payback at play here?

We also know that Paul Manafort, who is deeply tied to the Russians, urged Donald Trump to campaign in Michigan at the last minute. What did he know that others didn’t?

The American people need to know the truth about the Russian connection. But you appear to be sitting on your hands and giving the signal to other prominent Democrats to do the same.

We also know that the Comey revelations around Huma Abedin emails look very, very suspicious and were clearly politically motivated, at the very least in the timing of their release. It looks increasingly like a Watergate-level hit job by renegade FBI agents, possibly in collusion with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s trusted ally.

This article, called “Bigger than Watergate?,” chronicles the evidence in a clear, compelling way. In light of the revelations in this article and others, I urge you to demand a serious investigation.

In addition, we know that there were dramatic shifts from exit polls to final results, particularly in swing states. We now know that in some Democratic districts, failure rates of voting machines were over 50 percent. We know about widespread voter suppression efforts. We know that Trump’s lawyers were ruthless in shutting down Jill Stein’s recount efforts.

What were they hiding?

In short, this appears to be the dirtiest election in our nation’s history. Yet you have remained silent, acting the role of a “well-behaved” loser rather than leading.

That is not the high-integrity stance we need from you. We need you to fiercely protect the sanctity of our democracy.

Here’s what I believe you would do if you were stepping up as the leader we put our votes, money and effort behind.

First, you would give a speech immediately in which you make it crystal clear that you do not think we should ratify the results of this election until we have a thorough investigation of these major areas.

There is simply too much suspicious evidence for us to declare this election over. You should let people know that this is a matter of urgent national interest and encourage whistleblowers and truth-tellers to come forward.

In that speech, you would also tell the American people that your electors should NOT attempt to elect you at the Electoral College. In fact, you should tell at least a critical mass of them (38 or more) to vote for a moderate Republican who can become a unity candidate. I believe Senator Susan Collins is that candidate (my reasoning is outlined here).

The truth is that there is a zero percent likelihood that the Republican House would elect you President if the Electoral College stalemated.

However, I do believe there is a good chance, especially if more compromising evidence comes out of these investigations, that they could go for Senator Susan Collins, who would also break that final glass ceiling for women.

She is ranked as the most bipartisan Senator in the 114th Congress and has the highest Republican approval ratings. She also publicly refused to vote for Trump.

You would then do everything in your power to urge powerful Republicans to call upon their electors to abstain on their vote in the Electoral College so that we can get to the bottom of these investigations. You would call upon people like John McCain to say that abstaining is the patriotic, Republican thing to do so that we don’t make a huge, irrevocable mistake as a country.

You would also make it very clear that you will fully support and rally the Democrats behind the Republican moderate rather than try to take office yourself. That would go a long way toward having them trust your intentions.

By relinquishing the possibility of your own victory, you could protect American democracy and prevent a Trump presidency, which endangers our future on many levels.

Finally, you would demand the most thorough, public investigation into the election that we have ever had — before January 6.

Here are some of the many questions we need answers to between the Electoral College, assuming it stalemates, and the meeting of the House on January 6:

• What are Trump’s actual business ties to Russia?
• Was there collusion with Trump’s team and Russian hackers?
• Did Russian hacking and manipulation occur on election day itself?
• Was there collusion between FBI agents and Rudy Giuliani on the timing of the Comey revelations?
• Were the Abedin emails actually planted on Weiner’s computer?
• What are the real vulnerabilities in our voting machines?
• What happened in key Democratic districts where massive numbers of machines failed, such as Detroit?
• What was the full extent of voter suppression efforts?
• Do the actual printed ballots match the tabulated votes at the central tabulators?
• What are all the irregularities discovered during the partial recounts?

 President Obama is choosing to “lead from behind” on these issues by calling for investigations to be completed by January 19. That is not good enough.

Instead, you should call upon him to have the investigations complete and made fully public by January 6 so that the House of Representatives can make a well-informed choice of either Donald Trump or the moderate Republican who I believe should be Senator Susan Collins.

We attempted to elect you President. It is time to let that go. But we need you to take a courageous public stand that leads to full transparency around this election and the ways that our democracy has been compromised.

You need to do this to protect the future of American democracy and protect us from the dangers of an illegitimate election. You have a moral responsibility to do this.

We supported you to be a leader in service to our country.

We need that leadership now more than ever.

With respect,
Stephen Dinan

CEO, The Shift Network; author of Sacred America, Sacred World