Trump urges Russia to find, release emails from Clinton
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump encouraged Russia on Wednesday to find and make public missing emails deleted by his presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, setting off an instant debate over hacking and his urging of a foreign government to meddle in American politics.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said. He added later: “They probably have them. I’d like to have them released. … I think you will probably be rewarded
mightily by our press.”
He was referring to emails on Ms. Clinton’s private server that she said she deleted — because they were private — before turning other messages over to the State Department. The Justice Department declined to prosecute Ms. Clinton over her email practices, but FBI Director James Comey called her “extremely careless” in handling classified information as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
Mr. Trump’s comments were seen as an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented maneuver in American politics essentially encouraging an adversarial foreign power to cyberspy on a secretary of state’s correspondence. They were also viewed as a textbook example of Mr. Trump shifting back the spotlight in his direction, this time as the Democrats were meeting in Philadelphia.
The Clinton campaign called Mr. Trump’s statement the “first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against a political opponent.”
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s extraordinary remarks, his Republican running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, took a different tack and warned of “serious consequences” if Russia interfered in the election.
At a news conference in Doral, Fla., after Mr. Trump’s initial remarks, he was asked whether he had any qualms about asking a foreign government to hack into computers in the United States and whether Russian espionage into the former secretary of state’s correspondence would concern him. Mr. Trump said: “No, it gives me no pause. If they have them, they have them.”
He later added: “If Russia or China or any other country has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love to see them.”
Mr. Trump’s invitation was immediately contradicted by his running mate. Mr. Pence condemned any possible cyberespionage, breaking from Mr. Trump for the first time since being selected to run with him.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, said bluntly: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. [Russian President Vladimir Putin] should stay out of this election.”
A Trump campaign communications adviser, Jason Miller, sought to clarify Mr. Trump’s statements, saying on Twitter that Mr. Trump never urged or invited Russia to hack Ms. Clinton’s emails. Instead, he said, Mr. Trump was “clearly saying” that if Russia or anyone else already had Ms. Clinton’s deleted emails they should share them with the FBI.
Mr. Trump never mentioned the FBI in his comments.
Wednesday’s exchange occurred hours after Mr. Obama identified Russia as almost certainly responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee in a different case. WikiLeaks published on its website last week more than 19,000 internal emails stolen from the DNC earlier this year. The emails showed DNC staffers supporting Ms. Clinton when they were publicly promising to remain neutral during the primary elections between Sen. Bernie Sanders and her.
The head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned over the disclosures.
Mr. Trump cast doubt on whether Russia was behind that hack.
Mr. Obama told NBC News on Tuesday that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak. But intelligence officials who see little doubt that agents of the Russian government hacked the DNC are skeptical that there is a Kremlin master plan to install Mr. Trump in the White House.
Mr. Obama also appeared to embrace the notion that Mr. Putin might have been responsible because of what he described as Mr. Trump’s affinity for Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump said he has no relationship with Mr. Putin.
Mr. Trump was seen as playing into Democratic hands on Wednesday by praising Mr. Putin’s leadership qualities and vowing that U.S. relations with Russia would improve if he is elected in November.
When Katy Tur, an NBC reporter, asked Mr. Trump whether he was encouraging a foreign country to hack into emails, Mr. Trump snapped back: “Be quiet; I know you want to save her,” a reference to Ms. Clinton.
He also alleged that Mr. Putin had disparaged Mr. Obama with “the N-word” and inaccurately paraphrased Mr. Obama speaking in a stereotype of African-American dialect.
“His views of the world, as he says, ‘don’t jive,’ ” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Obama had recently used the word “jibe” in contrasting his views with Mr. Trump’s.
Many were also alarmed by Mr. Trump’s remark that he would be “looking at” whether Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, should be recognized as Russian territory.
Later, he walked into a packed college gymnasium in Scranton, Pa., and argued that Ms. Clinton would set women “back a long way,” and suggested that she would do such a poor job that American voters wouldn’t choose a woman again anytime soon.
Then, Mr. Trump again railed against Ms. Clinton, promised to crush a controversial international trade deal, lambasted the state of Ohio's economy under Democratic rule, and vowed to protect the nation from ISIS during his rally Wednesday in downtown Toledo, Ohio.