(CNSNews.com) - Hillary Clinton's campaign manager on Sunday suggested that the hacking of Democrat National Committee emails was done by the Russians to help elect Donald Trump president.
"I think the DNC needs to get to the bottom of the facts and then take appropriate action on any of these emails," Robby Mook told ABC's "This Week."
"What more is there to know?" host George Stephanopoulos asked Mook. The emails, an unexpected embarrassment on the eve of the Democrat National Convention, show how DNC staffers were working against Bernie Sanders to get Clinton nominated.
"Well, what's disturbing about this entire situation is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through these Web sites," Mook told "This Week."
"Obviously, they have to determine, you know, what's accurate, what -- what's been doctored, what has been doctored. And it's troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by -- by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
"Is that what you believe?" Stephanopoulos asked Mook.
"Well, I don't know," Mook replied. "The experts need to tell us that. It was concerning last week that Donald Trump changed the Republican platform to become what some experts would regard as -- as pro-Russian. And so, again, the DNC needs to -- needs to look into this and take appropriate action.
But -- but it's -- it's important to understand the broader perspective of -- of why this is happening."
Stephanopoulos asked Mook if he thinks Donald Trump "is too close to Vladimir Putin?"
"I think what's troubling is how he has praised Vladimir Putin," Mook said. "It's troubling that last week he said that -- or he questioned whether NATO should protect our Eastern European allies. So yes, I think that's troubling for any American, from a national security standpoint."
Also appearing on "This Week," Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said there are no ties between Putin and the Trump campaign. "That's absurd," he told Stephanopoulos. "There's no basis to it."
Manafort said Trump supports NATO, but -- as Trump has said -- it's a "two-way obligation," Manafort explained. "So everybody has to...carry their own weight."
Trump has complained that some NATO members are not paying their dues, and therefore should not be able to count on the alliance's support.
“It's possible that we’re going to have to let NATO go,” he told the New York Times in April. “When we’re paying and nobody else is really paying, a couple of other countries are but nobody else is really paying, you feel like the jerk.”
Trump has suggested that the U.S. may not defend countries from Russian aggression if they have not paid their dues.
President Obama was asked about Trump's views on NATO in an interview with "Face the Nation." Obama himself has called on NATO members to honor their pledged contributions.
But the president told John Dickerson on Sunday, "[T]here is a big difference between challenging our European allies to keep up their defense spending, particularly at a time when Russia has been more aggressive, and saying to them, you know what, we might not abide by the central tenet of the most important alliance in the history of the world, one that was built by Democrats and Republicans and has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II.
Obama suggested that Trump may "not have enough information or understanding" about America's "solemn commitment to protect those same allies who stood with us after 9/11 when we were attacked."
Obama called it "an indication of the lack of preparedness that he's been displaying when it comes to foreign policy."
As for Mook's suggestion that the Russians leaked the emails to help elect Donald Trump, Manafort called it "pure obfuscation" on the part of the Clinton campaign.
"What they don't want to deal -- talk about is what's in those emails. And what's in those emails show that it was a clearly rigged system, that Bernie Sanders -- Sanders never had a chance.
"And -- and, frankly, I think you're going to see some of that resentment boiling over this week in Philadelphia, because WikiLeaks clearly uncovered what Sanders has been saying and what Donald Trump has been saying, which is that, once again, the establishment and the special interests, you know, picked their candidate, Hillary Clinton, and made sure nothing the people were going to do or say was going to interfere with her selection."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), also appearing on "This Week," reminded Stephanopoulos that he's been saying for some time "that the DNC was not running a fair operation -- that they were supporting Hillary Clinton. So what I suggested to be true six months ago turns out, in fact, to be true. I'm not shocked. But I am disappointed. And that is the way it is."
Sanders on Sunday morning called for the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, which happened hours later. "I think she should resign. Period," he said. "And I think we need a new chair who is going the lead us in a very different direction, and that is taking on the billionaire class and fighting for an agenda that works for working family."