Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails

Donald Trump said that he hoped Russia had hacked Hillary Clinton’s e-mail, essentially encouraging an adversarial foreign power to cyberspy on a secretary of state’s correspondence. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing,” Trump said, staring directly into the cameras during a news conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Trump’s call was an extraordinary moment at a time when Russia is being accused of meddling in the United States’ presidential election. His comments came amid questions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, which American intelligence agencies have told the White House they have “high confidence” was the work of the Russian government. Later in the news conference, when asked if he was really urging a foreign nation to hack into the private e-mail server of Clinton, or at least meddle in the nation’s elections, he dismissed the question. “That’s up to the president,” Trump said, before finally saying “be quiet” to the female questioner. “Let the president talk to them.” The Clinton campaign immediately accused Trump of both encouraging Russian espionage against the United States and meddling in domestic politics.