Just after denying he had colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to leak Democratic National Committee emails, Donald Trump on Wednesday expressly asked Russia to find "missing" emails belonging to Hillary Clinton.
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing," he told reporters in Doral, Florida. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens. That will be next."
The DNC, cyber security experts, and US officials have said Russian state hackers were most likely behind the hacking of thousands of DNC emails, which were uploaded to Wikileaks on Friday.
The Republican nominee for president denied any ties to Putin or any role in the leak, which Democrats have suggested was done to boost Trump's campaign.
"I'm not going to tell Putin what to do. Why should I tell Putin what to do?" he said.
Trump denied there was any evidence that Russia was behind the attack, but also said the hacking showed a lack of respect of the US.
"But if it is Russia, it's really bad for a different reason because it shows how little respect they have for our country when they would hack into a major party and get everything," he said, before immediately asking Russia to hack Clinton's emails.
Carlo Allegri / Reuters
In July, FBI Director James Comey said he would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for sending classified emails on a personal server she used while Secretary of State. Comey added that his investigators managed to find "several thousand" emails Clinton did not turn over to the State Department because she deemed them private.
When a reporter asked Trump if he had "any qualms about asking a foreign government, Russia, China, anybody, to interfere, to hack into a system of anybody in this country" or if it gave him "pause," he responded, "No, it gives me no pause."
"Well, they probably have [the emails]. I'd like to have them released. ...If they have them, they have them."
"You know what gives me more pause?" he said, telling a female reporter to "be quiet."
"That a person in our government...would delete or get rid of 33,000 e-mails. That gives me a big problem," he said.
This is a developing news story. Check back for updates or follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.
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