But the latest – his invitation for America’s widely condemned rival Russian Federation to hack Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s emails – has crossed a new political Rubicon.
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Trump made the remark at a news conference in Miami that allowed him to steal some of the limelight from the Democratic National Convention.
In an unrelated though similar stumble for Clinton, last Friday, Wikileaks released emails from Clinton staffers plotting to undermine the Campaign of her opponent in the primaries, Bernie Sanders.
But at a press conference on Wednesday in Doral, Florida, Trump re-ignited the controversy with what appeared to be a challenge to Moscow.
‘Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, ‘ Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, told reporters. “I think you’ll be rewarded mightily by our press!”
Putin issued a decree merging Crimea into the southern federal district of Russian Federation to strengthen the work of federal state bodies, the Kremlin press service said. While they say Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric sounds appealing to Russians, there is much debate whether Trump would actually come through on his promises of better relations with Moscow – something that past United States presidential candidates have promised and not realized.
And the Russians are overjoyed at the prospect of having an American president who appears not to think much of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the security alliance that kept Moscow’s ambitions in check throughout the Cold War and helped bring down the Soviet Union. Trump’s de facto campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was a longtime consultant to Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed president of Ukraine who was overthrown in 2014.
“It is so absurd it borders on total stupidity”, he said. But it’s possible that whatever leaks Putin was contemplating may already be in motion, because WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange promised that more DNC messages will be forthcoming.
“The result is that we are seeing more and more countries saying we should analyze the sanctions, assess what effect they are having”.
But Democrats aren’t buying Trump’s revision of comments he made Wednesday, and his initial statement is nearly certain to be thrust back into the spotlight when Clinton accepts the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night.
As for NATO, Trump said the basic idea of the alliance was OK but that “it’s got to be modernized”. I will tell you right now, zero. In a recurring bit called “when keeping it real goes wrong”, various people would decide to say what they really felt, only to face disastrous consequences.
At the convention, Leon Panetta, former CIA director and defense secretary, said Trump is asking a USA adversary to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts against the United States of America to affect an election..
Foreign policy experts of all stripes “are left slack-jawed” by Trump’s pronouncements, said Derek Chollet, a senior adviser at the German Marshall Fund and former Pentagon official in the Obama administration.
“This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue”, he said on Wednesday. He’s now facing widespread criticism for calling on Moscow to conduct cyber-espionage on the former secretary of state. The Clinton campaign alleged that Russian Federation had hacked the DNC emails to help Trump.
Later, he dismissed concerns raised by Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook that his comments raised national security concerns.
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The FBI recommended not to bring criminal charges against Clinton earlier this month. In fact, he claims he was speaking sarcastically.
