In a surprising call for a foreign power to use its hacking abilities to get involved in the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton's missing emails from the time she was secretary of state.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said to a room of TV cameras at Trump National Doral. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
Trump also deflected accusations from the Clinton campaign that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee emails, which were made public on Friday, to help the Republican nominee.
"It's just a total deflection this whole thing with Russia.... By the way they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 e-mails. I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 e-mails that she lost and deleted because you'd see some beauties there. So let's see."
The Clinton campaign was quick to respond. Said advisor Jake Sullivan: "This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That's not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue."So Shrillary "suddenly" sees how this could be a national security issue, and she'll have her followers believe it's somehow it's Trump's fault because his words magically give Russia permission to do what any nation worth its salt would normally do. Including ours. Seems to me that some of her most blindly loyal followers aren't going to like what they hear.
Referring to questions about whether he could have been the hacker, Trump said: "It's so far-fetched. It's so ridiculous. Honestly I wish I had that power. I'd love to have that power."
Vice presidential candidate Mike Pence issued a statement Wednesday morning saying that the FBI will get to the bottom of who is behind the hacking.
Will their answer depend on who's in charge when the report comes out?
"If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences," he said. "That said, the Democrats singularly focusing on who might be behind it and not addressing the basic fact that they've been exposed as a party who not only rigs the government, but rigs elections while literally accepting cash for federal appointments is outrageous. The American people now have absolute and further proof of the corruption that exists around Hillary Clinton. It should disqualify her from office, if the media did their job."
That's a mighty big "if" there . . . .
Trump faced several questions about whether he has ties to Russia --which he denied --and his relationship with Vladimir Putin.
"I never met Putin," he said. "I don't know who Putin is. He said one nice thing to me. He said I was a genius. I said. "Thank you very much."
I wonder if he ever called Shrillary a genius.
Trump bashed President Barack Obama as "the most ignorant president in our history" and accused the press of siding with Clinton.
Sorry, I pared down the article to what was relevant to the title, but I couldn't resist this morsel.
When a female reporter asked Trump whether he was encouraging Russia to hack into emails, Trump snapped back: "Be quiet. I know you want to save her," a reference to Clinton.
Nor this one, either. ;-)
New York Times - 9 November 2016