No one went insane with Trump asking Russia for emails, because that did not happen.
I realize I could definitely be wrong on this, but I can't imagine the lefties are serious when they say Trump was really trying to collude with Russia when he said that about the emails. Right in front of the press. They have to realize he was just trolling them.
Surely they know that.
.
Ask Paul Ryan....
The Coincidence at the Heart of the Russia Hacking Scandal
On July 27, 2016, at a Trump
press conference in Florida, the candidate referred to 33,000 emails that an aide to Hillary Clinton had deleted from the former secretary of state’s personal email server. The DNC had recently announced the Russian intrusion, and Trump speculated that if Russia broke into the DNC, it would have accessed Clinton’s emails, too.
“By the way, if they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails,” Trump said. “I hope they do. They probably have her 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted. Because you’d see some beauties there.”
That was perhaps irresponsible speculation, but it wasn’t crazy. There were widespread questions about Clinton’s information security, and whether she might have compromised government secrets. But a few minutes later Trump said something much stranger.
“I will tell you this: Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
The president was encouraging a foreign adversary to illegally hack into messages by a former secretary of state that might contain sensitive information, then release them publicly.
Trump had good reason to believe that Russia
was listening. The previous month, his son, Donald Jr.; son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had a meeting at Trump Tower with Russians who they believed were offering damaging information about Clinton. (The meeting wasn’t revealed to the public until 2017, and both the Russians and the Trump campaign officials say no dirt was exchanged.) Prior to the meeting, Trump Jr. had
received an email stating that the meeting was “ part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Mueller’s
indictment offers new evidence that Russia was listening—and acting on Trump’s request. The indictment charges 12 officers of the GRU, Russia’s military-intelligence agency, with hacking intended to interfere with the election.
According to the document:
The Conspirators spearphished individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign throughout the summer of 2016. For example, on or about July 27, 2016, the Conspirators 7 attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.
In other words, a Russian attempt to penetrate Clinton’s server and her campaign came around the same time that Trump was publicly pleading with Russia to do just that. (Mueller alleges that there had been attempts to hack Clinton’s campaign since at least March 2016.)
Trump’s hacking request was so egregious that it earned immediate pushback from other Republicans. Speaker Paul Ryan’s spokesman issued a statement saying, “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.” Even Mike Pence, Trump’s own vice-presidential nominee, contradicted his running mate. “If it is Russia [that hacked the DNC] and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences,” he said.