“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”, Mr Trump said.
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“I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press”, Trump said in Miami.
“Putin has repeatedly said that Russian Federation has never interfered and does not interfere in internal affairs, especially in the electoral processes of other countries”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters yesterday, as he denied Russian Federation was involved in a hack of Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mails.
“I find those kinds of statements to be totally outrageous”, said former Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta, who claimed Trump was “in fact asking the Russians to engage in American politics”. Obama had recently used the word “jibe” in contrasting his views with Trump’s.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, lashed out at Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for saying he hopes Russian Federation can locate the tens of thousands of emails that were deleted from Hillary Clinton’s private server from when she was secretary of state. If the emails are hacked and Trump wins, it also could make him appear beholden to foreign interests.
Jill Dougherty, an advisory council member at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, argues in a commentary for CNN that in Trump, “Putin sees potentially the most Russia-friendly USA presidential candidate” since he came to power in 1999.
Mr Trump cast doubt on whether Russian Federation was behind that hack.
Trump’s invitation was immediately contradicted by his running mate.
“This is a national security issue now”, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters in Philadelphia.
An agitated and seemingly out-of-breath Donald Trump appeared at one of his resort properties in Florida Wednesday morning and spoke to the media for almost an hour on a wide range of topics, from controversy about his refusal to release his tax returns to his most recent poll numbers.
State Department spokesman John Kirby refused to comment, saying that the nation’s diplomats were staying out of politics.
“The media seems more upset by Trump’s joke about Russian hacking than by the fact that Hillary’s personal server was vulnerable to Russia”, Newt Gingrich wrote. I’ve never spoken to him.
“By the way, if they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails – I hope they do – they probably have the 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted because you’d see some beauties there”, he said. “Honestly, I wish I had that power”. He was responding to the breach of Democratic National Committee computers.
The Clinton campaign was not amused.
The head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned over the disclosures, which disrupted this week’s convention. The emails also showed details of the high-level access given to the party’s biggest donors. Trump has cast himself as the “law-and-order” candidate and promised to get tough on terrorists.
“How exactly would we distinguish Trump’s latest comments from treason”, The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote.
“I don’t think he (Putin) respects Clinton. Putin should stay out of this election”, Buck said. The editorial noted that Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort had extensive connections in Russian Federation and Ukraine.
The FBI investigated Clinton for using a private server to host official government emails during her time as Secretary of State.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, called it “staggeringly poor judgment even for him” and “breathtakingly irresponsible” in a statement.
Wednesday night’s Democratic lineup was aimed at emphasizing Clinton’s own national security credentials, a shift from two nights focused more on re-introducing her to voters as a champion for women’s issues, children and families.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it is investigating. When someone pointed out later that Putin was taped in Moscow and Trump at a different time in his NY penthouse and that they never met, Trump said maybe so.
Trump reverted to the dodge he has been using for the past year – that he can not release the returns because he is under audit and that he will do so when the audit is complete.
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This article was originally published at 11:30 a.m.
