The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday encouraged Russia to meddle in American politics with a stunning recommendation to uncover and make public hacked e-mails that might damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Shortly after Trump’s remarks, his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, took a different tack and warned of “serious consequences” if Russia interfered in the election.
The developments came as Democrats met on the third day of their presidential convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton will claim the party’s nomination tonight.
Trump’s extraordinary comments raised the spectre of whether he was condoning foreign government hacking of U.S. computers and the public release of information stolen from political adversaries—actions that at least are publicly frowned upon across the globe.
“I will tell you this. Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” Trump said.
He was referring to e-mails on Clinton’s private e-mail server that she deleted because she said they were private before she turned other messages over to the U.S. State Department.
The FBI declined to prosecute Clinton over her e-mail practices but its director said she had been “extremely careless” handling classified materials.
The Clinton campaign called Trump’s statement the “first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against a political opponent.”
At a press conference in Doral, Fla., after Trump’s initial remarks, he was asked whether he had any pause about asking a foreign government to hack into computers in the U.S.
Trump did not directly respond except to say, “That’s up to the president. Let the president talk to them.”
He later added: “If Russia or China or any other country has those e-mails, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love to see them.”
Later, Pence said in a statement there should be “serious consequences” if Russia is found to be interfering in the U.S. electoral process.
The exchange occurred after U.S. President Barack Obama identified Russia as almost certainly responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee.
WikiLeaks published on its website last week more than 19,000 internal e-mails stolen from the DNC earlier this year.
The e-mails showed DNC staffers actively supporting Clinton when they were publicly promising to remain neutral during the primary elections between Clinton and rival candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned over the disclosures, which disrupted this week’s convention.
Trump cast doubt on whether Russia was behind that hack. He said blaming Russia was deflecting attention from the embarrassing material in the e-mails.
“Russia has no respect for our country, if it is Russia,” Trump said.
“It could be China. It could be someone sitting in his bedroom.
“It’s probably not Russia. Nobody knows if it’s Russia,” he added.
Obama traditionally avoids commenting on active FBI investigations, but he told NBC News on Tuesday that outside experts have blamed Russia for the leak.
Obama also appeared to embrace the notion that President Vladimir Putin might have been responsible because of what he described as Trump’s affinity for Putin.
Trump said he has no relationship to Putin.
In Moscow yesterday, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia would never interfere in another country’s election.
