Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, questioned whether it would be illegal for a Democratic candidate in the upcoming election to ask China to hack President Trump’s tax returns.
“Imagine, Rachel, that you had one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show, and that person said, ‘You know, the only other adversary of ours who’s anywhere near as good as the Russians is China. So why should Russia have all the fun? And since Russia is clearly backing Republicans, why don’t we ask China to back us?’” Clinton told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday.
“‘And not only that, China, if you’re listening, why don’t you get Trump’s tax returns? I’m sure our media would richly reward you.’ Now, according to the Mueller report, that is not conspiracy, because it’s done right out in the open,” she said.
The president, who has refused to release his tax returns, called for Russia to find Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails as the two vied for the White House. Emails belonging to Democrats, including Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, were released by WikiLeaks in the months before Election Day. Those communications were hacked by Russia and passed on to WikiLeaks, according to the U.S. intelligence community and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller’s redacted report on Russian interference in the election described how Russian military officers targeted Democrats within hours of Trump’s suggestion that the country find the missing emails. Trump has said he was joking when he made the comments.
“So, if after this hypothetical Democratic candidate says this on your show, within hours, all of a sudden, the IRS offices are bombarded with incredibly sophisticated cyber tools looking for Trump’s tax returns, and then extracts them and then passes them to whatever the new WikiLeaks happens to be, and they start being unraveled and disclosed, nothing wrong with that,” Clinton said.
