31 release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks. 3. The Trump Campaign Reacts to Allegations That Russia was Seeking to Aid Candidate Trump In the days that followed WikiLeaks’s July 22, 2016 release of hacked DNC emails, the Trump Campaign publicly rejected suggestions that Russia was seeking to aid candidate Trump. On July 26, 2016, Trump tweeted that it was 32 “[c]razy” to suggest that Russia was “dealing with Trump” and that “[f]or the 33 record,” he had “ZERO investments in Russia.” In a press conference the next day, July 27, 2016, Trump characterized “this whole thing with Russia” as “a total deflection” and stated that it was 34 “farfetched” and “ridiculous.” Trump said that the assertion that Russia had hacked the emails was unproven, but stated that it would give him “no pause” if 35 Russia had Clinton’s emails. Trump added, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably 36 be rewarded mightily by our press.” Trump also said that “there’s nothing that I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now,” and in response to a question about whether he would recognize Crimea as Russian territory and consider lifting sanctions, Trump 37 replied, “We’ll be looking at that. Yeah, we’ll be looking.” During the press conference, Trump repeated “I have nothing to do with 38 Russia” five times. He stated that “the closest [he] came to Russia” was that 39 Russians may have purchased a home or condos from him. He said that after he held the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 he had been interested in working with Russian companies that “wanted to put a lot of money into 40 developments in Russia” but “it never worked out.” He explained, “[f]rankly, I didn’t want to do it for a couple of different reasons. But we had a major developer . . . that wanted to develop property in Moscow and other places. But 41 we decided not to do it.” The Trump Organization, however, had been pursuing a building project in Moscow—the Trump Tower Moscow project— from approximately September 2015 through June 2016, and the candidate was regularly updated on developments, including possible trips by Michael Cohen