Trump’s curious quip
The folly of invoking Russia in the U.S. campaign
In international affairs, in general, and particularly in relations between states that profess to be democracies, interfering in each other’s elections is considered to be bad form and unwise.
First, such intervention can easily provoke a reaction in voters of the country whose elections are interfered in of nationalism — a resentment of the foreign effort — that has an effect opposite to that intended. At best, it is a “none of their business” reaction. At worst it is, “They are an enemy trying to destroy our country.”
Another problem is that, if the interfering country gets it wrong and the candidate or party it supports doesn’t win, the party or candidate it opposed will never forget the offense and may take future opportunities to get even. The most recent unsuccessful U.S. intervention in a foreign election was President Barack Obama’s expressed support of the “remain” option in the United Kingdom’s June 23 referendum on staying in or leaving the European Union. The British voted to leave in the event.
With that as context, the question becomes, what is Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump doing in inviting Russia’s official intelligence services or unofficial hackers to reveal the emails that his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, deleted from her private server? Even if his Wednesday remark — “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” — was meant to be sarcastic, it can’t help Mr. Trump or the Republicans to appear to have invited President Vladimir Putin and Russia to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
Looking at Mr. Putin’s and Mr. Trump’s motives, there is already accumulating some informed commentary that says Mr. Trump is playing Moscow’s game because of business arrangements he has in place with Russia. The next step is to suggest that the reason he continues to refuse to release his tax returns is because they would reveal his financial ties to the Russians. Whatever the case in fact, these claims of ties to Russia can only hurt him, even with Americans who think that the United States should have better rather than worse relations with Mr. Putin and Russia, leading, for example, to an end to the war in Syria.
Mr. Trump can easily get rid of this problem by, first, denying categorically any collaboration with the Russians in trying to win strictly American elections, and, second, by releasing his tax returns — as is normal for presidential candidates — to squash once and for all any claims that there is electorally adverse information about him in them.