This came, remember, amid a separate flap over the release of Democratic National Committee emails by WikiLeaks in a hack that appears to have originated in Russia, prompting concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be meddling in the us presidential election.
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The FBI is investigating the theft of some 20,000 emails from servers of the Democratic National Committee, even as US intelligence agencies are reported to have told the White House they believe Russian Federation is responsible.
In June, the Democratic National Committee announced that hackers had been accessing its computer network for a year.
Trump, who has repeatedly said he would strive for better us relations with Russian Federation if he won the presidency, also raised eyebrows by saying he would consider recognizing Ukraine’s Crimea as part of Russian Federation, which annexed the region in 2014.
Trump’s initial comments were quickly condemned by the Clinton campaign, many in the foreign policy community and scores of Republicans, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose spokesman said Russia is “a global menace led by a devious thug” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin “should stay out of this election”.
Clinton repeated the allegation in the interview, implying that there was connection between the attack and what she called Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has praised Putin, saying that he was a stronger leader than US President Barack Obama.
Later in the night, several speakers, including the former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, slammed the Republican presidential nominee for asking the Russians to find out the missing 33,000 emails of Clinton and released them. “I’m pretty sure that any US government will pay full respect to those decisions”, he told reporters.
The Clinton Campaign issued a statement condemning Trump.
Supporters reach out for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally, July 27, 2016, in Toledo, Ohio. Clinton has said she deleted the emails because they were private, not related to government affairs, even as she turned over to government investigators another 30,000 emails connected to her State Department business. “I mean he was saying very good things about me, but I don’t have a relationship with him”. “But this is not up to us to decide if he is worthy, it is up to the voters in the United States”, the Russian leader said last December.
Most Americans might not know Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, but at the end of a 2013 music video is a scene that looks very familiar: a cameo from Trump sitting in a boardroom.
“Of course I’m being sarcastic”, Trump said in an interview broadcast on Thursday on Fox News. “And you have to look at that”.
“I have nothing to do with Russia”, Trump said Wednesday.
Suggestions of Russian involvement have riled the Kremlin, which has categorically denied this and accused US politicians of seeking to play on Cold War-style American fears of Moscow by fabricating stories for electoral purposes.
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Trump said, “I’d like to have them released. That would have been a time when I would have met him”, he said.
