Trump, July 27, 2016: "Russia, if you're listening," hack Hillary Clinton's emails
On February 10, 2024, at a rally in Conway, SC, in a statement that drew a sharp rebuke from the chief of the NATO alliance, Trump exclaimed, Russia, do "whatever the hell" you want to a NATO country with a low defense budget. Trump had similarly said the quiet part out loud as to collusion with Russia eight years earlier, during his first presidential campaign
On July 27, 2016, at a Miami news conference, just five days after the first release of leaks of Hillary Clinton's emails by Wikileaks, Trump said:
Russia if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will be rewarded mightily by our press.1
According to a sweeping 29-page indictment issued by the U.S. Department of Justice's special counsel's office, the Russians began their effort to hack Clinton's personal email server on July 27th, 2016, the very same day that Trump issued his invitation for them to do so.2
While Trump claimed in 2019 that he was joking about wanting help from Russia, even admitting that he'd "love to have that power,"3 court filings and comments show that members of Trump's team were serious about Russian help.4
- The New York Times, "Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton's Missing Emails," July 27, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html; C-SPAN, "Donald Trump Asks Russia to Find Hillary Clinton's Emails (video)," July 27, 2016, https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4615538/donald-trump-asks-russia-find-hillary-clintons-emails.
- The New York Times, "Trump Invited the Russians to Hack Clinton. Were They Listening?," July 13, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/trump-russia-clinton-emails.html.
- CNN, "Trump says he joked about wanting Russian help in 2016. The facts tell a different story," March 5, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/05/politics/trump-emails-joke/index.html.
- Ibid.
