PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager labeled as “unacceptable” the comments from Donald Trump that he hoped Russia might have the deleted emails Mrs. Clinton and her team unilaterally chose to purge from her private server.
“Look, Donald Trump is running to be president of the United States,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said Thursday on “CBS This Morning.” “Inviting a foreign power that is an aggressor at times towards the United States to commit espionage for whatever reason, let alone to influence the outcome of one of our elections, is just unacceptable.”
Mr. Trump said Wednesday that if Russia was responsible for the recent Democratic National Committee email hack, he hoped it had the approximately 30,000 emails that Mrs. Clinton and her team chose to delete from the private email server she chose to use as secretary of state.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said the comments constituted of encouraging foreign espionage into Mr. Trump’s political opponent. Mr. Trump later said he was being sarcastic.
“This is unbecoming of a president of the United States. This further proves that he is unfit and does not have the temperament to serve in this capacity,” Mr. Mook said.
Informed that Mr. Trump said he was joking, Mr. Mook said the issue is beyond rhetoric.
SEE ALSO: Donald Trump: I was being sarcastic with Russia hacking comments
“Look, I think this issue has turned beyond politics and rhetoric and that sort of thing. This is now a matter of national security,” he said.
Earlier this month, FBI Director James B. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton and her team were “extremely careless” with her own email set-up and said that hostile actors could very well have gotten their hands on Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account.
The FBI is investigating the recent DNC email hack. Wikileaks recently released thousands of internal DNC emails showing staff openly musing about undermining Sen. Bernard Sanders’ campaign.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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