Mrs Clinton, 69, offered her tongue-in-cheek suggestion during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night in which she also said she was “living rent-free in Donald Trump’s brain”. She said: “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?”
“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.”
Mrs Clinton’s phrase closely echoed Mr Trump’s famous remark during the 2016 campaign in respect to emails stored on Mrs Clinton’s private server while she was US Secretary of State, when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.
“I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Mr Trump later claimed he was joking – but Russian hackers did indeed go after her emails hours later, according to a report by special counsel Robert Mueller published after his exhaustive investigation into allegations of Russian interference three years ago.
Mrs Clinton said the most important thing she had learned from Mr Mueller’s report was that Russia had carried out a “sweeping and systemic interference” in the 2016 election for which it had not been held accountable.
The Russians had been successful in sowing “discord and divisiveness” in the US, while helping Trump, she said.
She added: “Let’s have a great power contest, and let’s get the Chinese in on the side of somebody else.
“Just saying, that shows how absurd the situation we find ourselves in.”
Pressed about Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier in the day, Mrs Clinton said that “calling for his resignation makes perfect sense.”
She added: “I think that the Democrats on the committee did a good job today in exposing that he is the president’s defense lawyer.
“He is not the attorney general of the United States in the way that he has conducted himself.”
While she said Democrats “have every reason to” find Barr in contempt, they should “not let Barr be the big shiny object that diverts people’s attention from the two major findings of the Mueller report”.
As for the President himself, she added: “I’m living rent free inside of Donald Trump’s brain.
“It’s not a very nice place to be, I can tell you that.
“So I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been investigated repeatedly by the other side. And much to their dismay, but to my, you know, satisfaction, it’s been for naught.”
“But this is part of their whole technique to divert attention from what the real story is.
“The real story is the Russians interfered in our election. And Trump committed obstruction of justice. That’s the real story. “