Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posed a hypothetical question on Rachel Maddow’s show Wednesday about what would happen if a 2020 presidential candidate asked the Chinese government to find President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Clinton’s comment came as she and Maddow were discussing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and their supposed plan to do it again during the next presidential race.
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“The Republicans look at the Trump White House and say well, you know, the Russians probably did help them, you know, just whatever extent we may not yet know, so we’re not going to go there. We’re going to do what they tell us,” Clinton stated. “Imagine, Rachel, that you had one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show, and that person said, you know, the only other adversary of ours, who is anywhere near as good as the Russians, is China. So why should Russia have all the fun? And since Russia is clearly backing Republicans, why don’t we ask China to back us.”
“I hereby tonight ask China—” Maddow interrupted before Clinton continued. (RELATED: Hillary Clinton Jokes About Email Scandal On ‘Murphy Brown’)
“That’s right. And not only that, China, if you’re listening, why don’t you get Trump’s tax returns? I’m sure our media would richly reward you. Now according to the Mueller report, that is not conspiracy because it’s done right out in the open,” she went on. “So if after this hypothetical Democratic candidate says this on your show, within hours, all of a sudden, the IRS offices are bombarded with incredibly sophisticated cyber tools looking for Trump’s tax returns, and then extracts and then passes them to whatever the new WikiLeaks happens to be and they start being unravelled and disclosed, nothing wrong with that.”
A clearly frustrated-with-Mueller @HillaryClinton positing a hypothetical on @maddow’s show about a Democratic candidate asking China to hack the IRS to obtain @realDonaldTrump’s tax returns is good television if nothing elsepic.twitter.com/9V7aN3w9ez
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) May 2, 2019
Clinton’s hypothetical stems from Trump asking Russia in 2016 to “find the 30,000 emails that are missing” from Clinton’s server. He also suggested that the would be “rewarded” by the American press.
Her emails and the FBI investigation into Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state were major issues of the 2016 presidential campaign.