"This has gone from being a curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue."

After taunting Hillary Clinton by asking Russian hackers to release 30,000 e-mails she deleted, Donald Trump finally forced Clinton’s campaign to admit that her unsanctioned e-mail server scheme was a “national security issue.”

Clinton camp responds to Trump calling on Russia to release emails pic.twitter.com/fKsv03OO9z



Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 27, 2016

Trump’s comments about Russian hacking followed numerous reports this week that Russian hackers compromised the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) servers and then leaked thousands of e-mails sent by top Democratic staffers. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign her position as a result of the leaks.

If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!



Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2016

On Wednesday morning, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump asked Russia to turn over the tens of thousands of e-mails deleted by Hillary Clinton. The scandal-plagued former Secretary of State maintained for months that the e-mails were personal, not work-related, and that they were in no way classified.

But in a press release issued on Wednesday, Clinton’s top campaign spokesman suddenly declared those e-mails to be a “national security issue”:

This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent. That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.

Sullivan did not explain how the e-mails, which Clinton said were about nothing more than her “yoga routines” and wedding planning for her daughter, could possibly pose a national security risk to the United States. Sullivan also failed to explain how unclassified e-mails “private personal e-mails” wholly unrelated to her work as Secretary of State — Clinton declared in an infamous 2015 press conference that she “did not email any classified material to anyone on my email” — could compromise American security.

Contrary to Sullivan’s assertion about the unprecedented nature of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) begged the Soviets to help him get rid of President Ronald Reagan in 1984.