Stein told PBS there is "not a smoking gun here," but that this was an election "in which we saw hacking all over the place, we saw hacking into the Democratic Party database and hacking into voter database in Illinois and Arizona and evidence that it was attempted much more broadly."
In her fundraising appeal on her campaign website, Stein was quoted blaming the hacking on "foreign agents." A press release on the same site carried the same quote but without the words "foreign agents." The first quote was later altered to remove reference to foreign agents. [The original can be seen archived here.]
During the campaign, Clinton had repeatedly made the accusation that Russian agents were trying to influence the election and had hacked into the Democratic Party database and the emails of her campaign chairman, John Podesta.
But at his last testimony to Congress as Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper admitted there was no proof about who was behind the supposed hacks into email accounts of Democratic leaders, which proved embarrassing to the Clinton campaign.
Obama-Clinton Split
Asked in the online video why she chose recounts in the three states won by Trump that could swing the election, Stein said because the results in those states were close. But there were other closely contested states won by Clinton that Stein has not asked to be recounted.
While Stein is keeping the donor list secret, it is unlikely she would have been able to raise so much money in so short a time without the help of Clinton supporters who would not have backed a recount in states Clinton had already won. Stein only raised $3.5 million for her entire campaign, about half of what has poured in for the recount.
Stein may have chosen those states knowing she could get Clinton supporters to pay for her fight for electoral integrity without any intention of deliberately helping Clinton. As Stein and election analysts say, a recount overturning the election result is unlikely.
But with the Clinton campaign now joining in a supposed search for evidence that hackers, especially "foreign agents," tampered with election computers, the controversy may be useful for the Clinton team in their effort to lobby electors to change their vote, which previously had centered on Clinton's two-million-vote plurality in the national popular vote.
Clinton supporters have so far apparently made little headway in their efforts to get Republican electors to vote for Clinton instead. Twenty-four states do not legally bind electors who are awarded to the candidate who wins the popular vote in each state.
On Friday, the Obama administration said there was no evidence that Russia or anyone else had hacked the election. An article in The Hill newspaper said there was a split within the Democratic Party about whether to go for a recount between the Clinton camp, which was for it, and Obama's camp, which was not.
Meanwhile, the national Green Party distanced itself from the recount effort led by Stein. Scott McLarty, the Green Party's national media coordinator, told me via email on Friday that, "The recount is a project of the Stein/Baraka campaign."
McLarty said the national party's steering committee was never asked by Stein to endorse the recount. But he said she asked the committee to act as the financial agent for the flood of donations, which the committee declined to do.
Some Green Party officials have individually supported the recount. But McLarty said on Saturday, "The Green Party of the United States has not taken an official position on the recount yet." His comment came hours before the Clinton campaign, which had remained silent on Stein's move, said it would join the effort to recount the votes.
Trump's Response
On Twitter, Trump dismissed the significance of the recount efforts. "Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in," Trump said in a tweet Sunday. "Nothing will change."
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