Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pointed out that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump went "beyond the pale" in calling on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's e-mail and said shows he is not qualified to be the President.
In an exclusive interview to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Panetta said, "That kind of statement only reflects he is truly not qualified to be president of the United States."
He was responding to comments made by Trump about Russia's potential involvement in the Democratic National Committee's e-mail hacking.
Trump's comments were about the missing e-mails from a private server that Clinton had used while she was the secretary of state.
"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," Trump had said.
Panetta, a Democrat who was former president Bill Clinton's chief of staff before serving in President Barack Obama's cabinet, remained horrified on Trump's comments.
"This just is beyond my own understanding of the responsibilities that candidates have to be loyal to their country and to their country alone, not to reach out to somebody like Putin and Russia, and try to engage them in an effort to try to, in effect, conduct a conspiracy against another party," he said.
He added, "You've got now a presidential candidate who is in fact asking the Russians to engage in American politics and I just think that's beyond the pale..I have a lot of concerns of his qualities of leadership or lack thereof. That kind of statement only reflects the fact that he truly is not qualified to be president of the United States.
