Donald Trump Makes a Bizarre 'Request' for Vladimir Putin
By:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump apparently "hopes" Russian hackers can find more information about his Democratic opponent.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Trump called for Russians to breach U.S. cyber security and find Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails. He was referencing Clinton's classified email scandal that FBI Director Jim Comey called "extremely careless." Some of Clinton's emails were deleted from a private email server.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Trump also tweeted that if "any other country or person" has Clinton's emails they should share them with the FBI.
Trump made these comments just days after reports surfaced that the Russian government could be behind a cyber attack on the Democratic Party's emails.
Within minutes of Trump's comments, his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, released a statement that was seemingly for damage control, condemning the hack into the Democratic Party's emails and assuring the American people there will be "serious consequences" for the hacks.
Jake Sullivan, Clinton's senior policy advisor said in a statement that Trump's comments are a "national security issue."
People on Twitter had strong reactions on both sides to Trump's call for a Russian hack into Clinton's emails.
However, Newt Gingrich tweeted that Clinton's email scandal was a far worse offense than Trump's comments.
Trump's press conference was intended to address allegations that he has an inappropriate relationship with the Russian government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump have a well-known admiration for each other. Last year, Putin endorsed Trump for the U.S. presidency by calling him "very talented" and an "absolute leader." Trump in return said it was a "great honor" to receive support form Putin.
Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook made some bold implications on Monday about the Russian hackers and Trump. He said that they could have breached the emails "for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." The controversy forced Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is reportedly behind the release of the hacked information, hinted about the Democratic National Committee emails several weeks before there were released, according to TIME.
In a June 12 interview with ITV, Assange said that he possessed "emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication." After the release of Wasserman's emails, Assange told Democracy Now! on Monday that he planned to disrupt Clinton's campaign by releasing them near the Democratic National Convention.
“Often it’s the case that we have to do a lot of exploration and marketing of the material we publish ourselves to get a big political impact for it,” he told Democracy Now!. “But in this case, we knew, because of the pending DNC, because of the degree of interest in the U.S. election, we didn’t need to establish partnerships with the New York Times or the Washington Post.”
On Tuesday, Fox News Contributor George Will said that Trump has avoided releasing his taxes to hide his business relationships with Russia.
"Well, it's the sort of thing we might learn if we saw the candidate's tax returns," Will said on Fox News, according to The Hill. "Perhaps one more reason why we're not seeing his tax returns — because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs and others. Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, it's probably the reasonable surmise."
