(CNN)On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump stood at a podium in Florida, looked straight into the camera and addressed Vladimir Putin"s intelligence operatives: "Russia, if you"re listening," he shot, "I hope you"re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." With that, the Republican presidential candidate urged Russia, a country with a history of antagonistic relations with the United States, to break U.S. law and interfere in the most important part of this country"s democracy, its presidential election.
Trump was referring to the emails that Hillary Clinton says her staffers deleted from her private server because they were "personal and private." Whatever voters think about Clinton, we should recognize that Trump"s baiting of Russia reaches a new level of outrage.
Trump is flirting with treason, encouraging, perhaps even conspiring, with a foe of the United States.
Trump has already said he might recognize Putin"s annexation of Ukraine"s Crimea, a violation of international law that outraged the world.
The GOP candidate"s recent comments, which called into question Washington"s future willingness to defend its NATO allies, has rightly caused alarm among America"s European friends. His statements paint a picture of an unreliable and unpredictable ally across the Atlantic, who can easily be swayed by the Kremlin, among others.
And there is already evidence that Trump will stand idly by while autocracy reigns supreme. He turned a blind eye to human rights violations and curtailments of democracy, when he refused to criticize the post-coup crackdown in Turkey. But his message was no doubt heard by another regional strongman: Putin.
As Western leaders fret about what a Trump presidency might bring, American voters are receiving new and critical pieces of information. Trump is increasingly promising the kind of foreign policy that Putin could only imagine in his wildest dreams. That may be reason enough for the Russian president and his friends to tip the scales in Trump"s favor.
That, of course, is enormously troubling -- almost as troubling as hearing Trump, a major presidential candidate, disloyally tiptoe toward treason by calling on a U.S. foe to spy in America.
Read more: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/opinions/trump-putin-email-hack-ghitis/index.html">http://edition.cnn.com/</a>
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