NEW YORK, July 28 (UPI) — Donald Trump on Thursday said he was being “sarcastic” when he said he hoped Russia, a country accused of state-sanctioned cyberspying, finds Hillary Clinton‘s “30,000 emails that are missing.”
Trump suggested Democrats are attempting to use his comment to distract voters from the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s emails last week, an incident unrelated to Clinton’s email server scandal.
“Of course I’m being sarcastic, and they don’t even know frankly if it’s Russia. They have no idea if it’s Russia, if it’s China, if it’s somebody else. Who knows who it is? But you have 33,000 emails deleted, and the real problem is what was said on those emails from Democratic National Committee. You take a look at what was said in those emails — it’s disgraceful.”
During a press conference Wednesday at the Trump National Doral golf resort in Florida, Trump directly addressed Russia, saying he hopes it is “able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to emails Clinton said she deleted from her private server because she said they were personal in nature and not tied to her job as secretary of state at the time.
“The real problem is what was said on those emails from the Democratic National Committee,” Trump told Fox News. “They talk about religion, they talk about race, they talk about all sorts of things, including women. What they said on those emails is a disgrace. It’s disgraceful, it’s disgraceful. They’re just trying to deflect from that.”
