Eric Holder denounces Trump’s ‘breathtaking’ invitation for Russia to hack Clinton’s email
Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that Donald Trump’s comments inviting Russia to use its cyberpowers to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails were “almost hard to believe” and “really calls into question his ability to be commander in chief.”
“I was told what he said and, frankly, I didn’t believe it,” Holder said in an interview with Yahoo News. “I can’t believe he actually wants the Russians to do something like that. … If he were able to get emails or something useful to his political campaign from the Russians, I think he’d be OK with that. And that is breathtaking. And it’s something I’m still trying wrap my mind around.”
Holder’s comments came after Trump spoke at a Florida press conference. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said, staring directly into the cameras. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Asked about comments by U.S. government officials indicating they have increasing confidence that Russia was behind the cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, Holder said: “I wouldn’t put anything past the Russians and [President Vladimir] Putin.”
But he declined to discuss what actions the U.S. government should take if it determines Russia conducted the cyberattack, noting that many times the Obama administration chose not to publicly identify foreign governments behind such operations. Thousands of DNC emails, some of them political embarrassing, were released last weekend and cast a shadow over the start of this week’s Democratic convention.
“You certainly have to do an investigation and try to determine who was behind the attacks,” Holder said Wednesday. “There were frequently times we looked into these things and for a variety of reasons never made them public. You don’t want to reveal sources and methods, the capabilities that we have as a government to detect things, to prevent things from occurring.”
Cyberattacks were a significant part of the presidential daily brief he helped review for President Obama, Holder said.
“In the presidential daily brief I would review every morning — the meeting I would have at 8:30 with the intelligence community and the FBI as we went through what was threatening the United States, and a good portion of that was cyber-related things.
“And the notion that a man who wants to be president of the United States would talk about it in the way that [Trump] has and, in essence, invite a foreign power and, of all foreign powers Russia, to somehow share the fruits of a cyberattack and share it with him for political purposes is simply astounding.”
Holder, the country’s first African-American attorney general, focused much his attention in the latter years of his tenure on racial disparities in the criminal justice system, as well as tensions over the killing of unarmed black men by the police. He traveled to Ferguson, Mo., in the wake of the death of Michael Brown and brought lawsuits against police departments suspected of civil rights violations.
In his convention speech Tuesday night, Holder — who is now a surrogate for Hillary Clinton — made the case that the former secretary of state is uniquely suited among politicians to help heal the divide between law enforcement and African-Americans. “As a presidential candidate, she has talked about systemic racism in a way that no one else has,” Holder said. “And she will help our nation summon the courage to confront racial injustice — and face down the legacies of our darkest past.”
As a lifelong prosecutor who has himself been racially profiled by the police, Holder has sought to find common ground between law enforcement and groups like Black Lives Matter. But in the wake of the assassinations of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge earlier this month, Holder toughened his stance against such violence. In the interview with Yahoo News, Holder, who says he is personally opposed to capital punishment, said for the first time that he believes the wanton killing of police officers should be subject to the death penalty. “I’m not a supporter of the death penalty, but I have to tell you when you have police officers being killed, that is one of the few instances when I think the death penalty should be considered,” he said.
In little-noticed remarks on July 16 at a meeting of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Holder said: “When a police officer is killed in the line of duty, the harshest punishments — the ultimate punishment — must be meted out.”
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