Trump urges Russia to hack Clinton e-mails

MIAMI: Donald Trump sensationally challenged Russia yesterday to hack into Hillary Clinton's e-mails as a furious Democratic campaign accused the Republican nominee of inviting foreign spies to meddle in the US presidential vote.
At a news conference, the billionaire tried to undermine his White House rival, implied that Vladimir Putin used a racial slur against President Barack Obama and promised a heyday of US-Russian relations under a Trump presidency.
His remarks provoked outrage from the Clinton campaign and left some Republicans wincing as his running mate Mike Pence hurriedly clarified that the party was not in cahoots with Russia.
Attacking Clinton as she prepares to accept her party's nomination, Trump turned his guns on the e-mail scandal during her time as secretary of state where more than 30,000 emails were deleted on grounds of being personal and not related to her job.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," he said.
The Clinton camp responded furiously, saying it was "the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent".
"This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue," Clinton's senior policy advisor, Jake Sullivan, said.
While the FBI declined to recommend charges against Clinton over the e-mail scandal, its conclusion that she was "extremely careless" with classified information has seen the Democrat lose her polling advantage to Trump.
The row spotlights deep US distrust of Russia, fueling more headlines about if Russia may have hacked into Democratic Party e-mails which, once leaked, hugely embarrassed the Clinton campaign.
Those e-mails leaked by WikiLeaks, showed the extent to which party leaders sought to undermine Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders, even questioning his religion.
The Clinton team blamed that leak on Moscow and accused Russia of conniving to get Trump elected. Obama also gave an interview refusing to rule out that Russia was trying to sway the election, which the Kremlin has denied.
Trump meanwhile said Putin has no respect for Clinton or Obama, hinting that the Russian leader had used America's most charged racial slur against Obama.
"He mentioned the N word one time. I was shocked to hear him mention the N word. A total lack of respect for President Obama."
"Russia has never interfered and does not interfere in internal affairs, especially in the electoral processes of other countries," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday.
Trump spearheaded the so-called birther movement, which undermined America's first black president by claiming that he was not born in the United Sates. – AFP