Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.
Mr. Trump’s call was another bizarre moment in the mystery of whether Vladimir V. Putin’s government has been seeking to influence the United States’ presidential race.
His comments came amid questions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, which American intelligence agencies have told the White House they have “high confidence” was the work of the Russian government.
When asked whether he would recognize Crimea “as Russian territory” and lift the sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “We’ll be looking at that. Yeah, we’ll be looking.”
Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to avoid condemning Mr. Putin’s government is a remarkable departure from United States policy and Republican Party orthodoxy, and has fueled the questions about Russian meddling in the campaign. Mr. Trump has denied that, saying at the news conference that he has never met Mr. Putin, and has no investments in Russia .
“I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now,” he said, “so that we can go and knock out ISIS together.”
Mr. Trump later tried to modify his remarks about hacking Mrs. Clinton’s emails, contending they represented an effort to get the Russians to turn over their trove to the F.B.I.
Mr. Trump contended on Wednesday that the political uproar over whether Russia was meddling in the election was a “total deflection” from the embarrassing content of the emails. Many Republicans, even some who say they do not support Mr. Trump, say they agree.
If Mr. Trump is serious in his call for Russian hacking or exposing Mrs. Clinton’s emails, he would be urging a power often hostile to the United States to violate American law by
breaking into a private computer network. He would also be contradicting the Republican platform, adopted last week in Cleveland, saying that cyberespionage “will not be tolerated,” and promising to “respond in kind and in greater magnitude”
to all Chinese and Russian cyberattacks.
“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,” said Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser, whose emails from when he was a State Department aide were among those that were hacked.
“This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue,” he added.
For his part, Mr. Trump cast doubt on the conclusion that Russia was behind the hacking. “I have no idea,” he said. He said the “sad thing” is that “with the genius we have in government, we don’t even know who took the Democratic National Committee emails.”
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