Donald Trump said he hopes the hackers who infiltrated Democratic National Committee servers have also struck election rival Hillary Clinton.
At a press conference in Doral, Florida, Wednesday, the GOP nominee for president refuted suggestions that he had a role in the DNC hack, but he had encouraging words for the Russians whom the Clinton campaign says may have been responsible for the breach.
“If they hacked, they probably have her 33,000 emails — I hope they do … you’d see some beauties there,” he said, referring to State Department emails sent from a private server maintained by then-Secretary Clinton. FBI Director James Comey recently called mishandling of the emails “extremely careless.”
Trump’s comments came in response to a reporter who questioned why Russian involvement in the hack is so far fetched.
Calling the notion “a total deflection” perpetuated by his presidential opponent, Trump then did an impersonation to illustrate Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s recent suggestion that hackers leaked sensitive Democratic party emails in an effort to help Trump win in November.
“He reminded me of Jon Lovitz from ‘Saturday Night Live’ in the Liar, where he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, I went to Harvard, Harvard, yeah, yeah,’” he said. “This is the guy — you have to see it. ‘Yeah, it could be Trump, yeah, yeah.’”
Saying of Russian president Vladimir Putin, “I never met Putin — I don’t know who Putin is,” the real estate developer reiterated that the insinuation of collusion was far fetched, but not because he would decline the opportunity.
“Honestly, I wish I had that power,” he said.