Donald Trump says he was ‘being sarcastic’ when he called on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s emails

Donald Trump says he was kidding when he directly called on Russia to find the estimated 30,000 emails that Hillary Clinton deleted from a private email server she used as secretary of state.

“Of course I’m being sarcastic,” Trump said in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning. “You have 33,000 emails deleted, and the real problem is what was said on the emails from the Democratic National Committee.”

The committee’s emails, which were leaked on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, suggested the Democratic Party favored Clinton over Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Administration officials and cybersecurity experts believe those emails, which were obtained and published by WikiLeaks, were the result of a breach of the DNC’s servers carried out by Russian hackers in an apparent attempt to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

During a press conference on Wednesday in Doral, Fla., Trump appeared to issue a challenge to Moscow.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican presidential nominee said, staring directly into the bank of television cameras set up at a golf course he owns outside Miami. “I think you will probably be mightily rewarded by our press.”

The Clinton campaign quickly seized on Trump’s comments, calling them reckless.

“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,” Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser to the Clinton campaign, said in a statement. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”

Trump spokesman Jason Miller insisted the candidate was merely encouraging other countries to turn over any information relating to Clinton’s emails to federal authorities.

“To be clear,” Miller wrote, “Mr. Trump did not call on, or invite, Russia or anyone else to hack Hillary Clinton’s.”

Trump, though, later tweeted a similar call.

“He was telling a joke,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday on CNN. “If he tells me, ‘I’m joking,’ I take him at his word he’s joking.”

Others, though, didn’t find it very funny.

“I was told what he said and, frankly, I didn’t believe it,” former Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview with Yahoo News on Wednesday. “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 added: “It really calls into question his ability to be commander in chief.”

“I was shocked,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told Yahoo News in a separate interview. “The idea that any presidential candidate — let alone the nominee of a major party — is calling on a foreign nation, one that is sometimes hostile to our interests, calling on them to commit acts of espionage against an opponent, is stunning. I really believe that this has become a matter of national security.”

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Trump’s statements “totally outrageous.”

“You’ve got now a presidential candidate who is in fact asking the Russians to engage in American politics,” Panetta said on CNN Wednesday. “And I just think that that’s beyond the pale. There are a lot of concerns I have with his qualities of leadership, or lack thereof, and I think that kind of statement only reflects the fact that he truly is not qualified to be president of the United States.

“Just from a pure position of common sense, no presidential candidate who’s running to be president of the United States ought to be asking a foreign country, particularly Russia, to engage in hacking or intelligence efforts to try to determine what the Democratic candidate may or may not be doing,” Panetta continued. “He just doesn’t understand the implications that that job involves, particularly with regards to the rest of the world.”

On Wednesday, Trump called suggestions that Russia was actively trying to sway the campaign on his behalf “a total deflection.” The real estate mogul pointedly denied reports that Trump Organization projects have been funded by Russian business investors. He also denied having any relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he’s previously spoken warmly of.

“I’ve never met Putin,” Trump insisted. “I don’t know who Putin is.”

— With Holly Bailey

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