I'm not denying that Russia sometimes interferes in foreign politics, but is that nearly as bad as the US overthrowing governments and causing chaos.
This is the Whataboutism fallacy. This thread is about Russia interfering in US elections. It is not about the US interfering in other governments.
(For the record, yes, the US doing those things is
also wrong. You do know a person can disapprove of
both, right?)
No, the emails weren't hacked
From the Mueller Report
Introduction to Volume I (page 1), emphasis mine:
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials-hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government-began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November.
Executive Summary to Volume I (page 4), emphasis mine:
In March 2016, the GRU [General Staff of the Russian Army] began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.
I trust the Mueller Report, written by a servant of the Justice Department highly respected by members across the political spectrum.
I do not trust an article from entertainment rag The Inquisitr, let alone one written a month before the election even happened.
I suggest you actually read Hillary's emails for yourself and find out Hillary is not who she says she is.
This is an Ad Hominem fallacy. Hillary Clinton's personal character is completely irrelevant to whether Russia hacked the DNC and released damaging emails.
So Trump sarcastically said maybe the Russians could find them (in their files).
The full statement Trump made on July 27, 2016, was, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
Mueller Report, Russian Hacking and Dumping Operations (page 49), emphasis mine:
Within approximately five hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office. After candidate Trump's remarks, Unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts at the domain [REDACTED] including an email account belonging to Clinton aide [REDACTED]. The investigation did not find evidence of earlier GRU attempts to compromise accounts hosted on this domain. It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts, which were not public.
Trump made his statement
after it had already been made known to him that Russia was actively interfering in the US election to benefit him. For example, he made his statement nearly two months after his campaign's June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian officials at Trump Tower, which was arranged specifically to get "dirt" on Clinton. That meeting allegedly produced no such "dirt", but it sent the message very clearly to Trump that Russia wanted him to win and was not above engaging in illegal activity to benefit him.
This is what is meant when it is said that Trump and his campaign did not
do any of the hacking or leaking, but they knew it was happening and encouraged it.
