Hillary Clinton tried to put the spotlight on Russian President Vladimir Putin when she got confronted with an uncomfortable statement from one of her previously sealed speeches to banking execs – but ended up getting compared unflatteringly to 'honest' Abraham Lincoln.

Hillary Clinton got asked for the first time about hacked emails that were posted on Wikileaks Friday that showed her saying there was a need to have a 'public and a private position' – diplomatic speak for being two-faced.

'As I recall that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Stephen Spielberg movie,' Clinton said, in reference to 'Lincoln,' which shows the 16th president cajoling lawmakers to try to get the 13th Amendment enacted.

inger: 'She got caught in a total lie... She lied. And now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln – Honest Abe,' Trump said of Clinton's claim

Hillary Clinton says she was just talking about Abraham Lincoln when she told a Wall Street crowd in a paid speech there was a need to have a 'public' and a 'private' persona – but Donald Trump said she didn't compare well to 'Honest Abe'

'I was making the point that it is hard sometimes to get the congress to do what you want to do,' Clinton said.

She described Lincoln's strategy as being: 'trying to convince some people he used some arguments, convincing other people he used other arguments.'

'So ridiculous,' said Trump.

'She got caught in a total lie... She lied. And now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln – Honest Abe.'

Directing his response right at his opponent, Trump said: 'Honest Abe never lied. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you. That’s a big difference.'

Emails posted by Wikileaks on Friday contained excerpts from paid speeches that Clinton has refused to release.

In one, she tells a Wall Street crowd: 'If everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least.

Donald Trump immediately tweeted about Clinton and Lincoln

The WikiLeaks site recently posted a new batch of embarrassing emails that included quotes from Clinton's paid speeches

She continued: 'So, you need both a public and a private position.'

'Politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be,' Clinton said.

Clinton cited the recent conclusion by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee. Other Democrats have also been hacked – including campaign chair John Podesta, whose private emails got posted Friday.

'We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election,' Clinton said.

'And believe me they’re not doing it to get me elected.'

'Maybe because he has praised Putin … maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow I don’t know the answers,' Clinton speculated, calling for Trump to release his tax returns to show any business connections.

'She doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking,' Trump said. 'Maybe there is no hacking.'

'I know nothing about Russia,' he said – before catching himself in a possible verbal slip. 'I know plenty about Russia,' he corrected himself.