Donald Trump’s hope that Russia might help locate Hillary Clinton’s missing emails further disqualifies him from serving as commander-in-chief, former CIA director Leon Panetta said Wednesday.
During a press conference earlier in the day, Trump said he hoped Russia might be able to return Clinton’s deleted emails, and said he assumes Russia already has them.
“If you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said, referring to emails from Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not turned over to the FBI.
“I find those kinds of statements to be totally outrageous because you’ve got now a presidential candidate who is in fact asking the Russians to engage in American politics,” Panetta told CNN.
“That’s beyond the pale,” he added. “There are a lot of concerns I have with [Trump’s] qualities of leadership, or lack thereof, and I think that kind of statement only reflects the fact that he truly is not qualified to be president of the United States.”
The Clinton campaign responded by accusing Trump of encouraging foreign espionage, but Trump later took to Twitter to suggest that “Russia or any other country” who has the missing Clinton emails “should share them with the FBI.”
