– Backlash over emails –
Clinton, in her comments, was responding on “Fox News Sunday” to allegations of Russian involvement in leaks of Democratic Party emails that embarrassed her on the eve of the just-ended Democratic national convention.
As that convention was under way, Trump urged Russia to find and release several thousand emails that disappeared from Clinton’s private server while she was secretary of state.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said at the time, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will be mightily rewarded by our press.”
That call, of a sort nearly unprecedented in US presidential politics, drew sharp rebukes from Democrats and some Republicans.
US cybersecurity experts said it raised questions about whether Russia had attempted to influence the American campaign in Trump’s favour. Leaked emails published by WikiLeaks revealed the distrust of some key Democratic leaders of Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s former rival for the Democratic nod.
Trump’s seeming encouragement of Russian hacking, Clinton told Fox, “raises issues about Russian influence in our election.”
“And for Trump to both encourage that and to praise Putin despite what appears to be a deliberate effort to try to affect the election, I think, raises national security issues.”
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