There is no comparing Obama’s relationship with Russia versus Trump’s. They are in a completely different league. Obama never publicly called on Russia to hack into an opponent’s system.
Neither did Trump, to be accurate. At the time of Trump’s statement the server was wiped but believed to have been hacked before that point.
Accordingly the NYT, at the time, described Trump as saying that “he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen.”
Notice use of the past tense. Also the DNC also had already been hacked at that point.
Trump’s comments were inappropriate and encouraging of bad behavior by foreign adversaries, but it was understood, at the time, that he was asking for release of materials already presumed stolen because of negligence by Clinton.
Now that the context is forgotten, the NYT claims, “Donald J. Trump made a direct appeal to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails and make them public.”
So now we’ve shifted to a future request for hacking, rather than a request to publish what was already hacked, only because people are ignoring the context.
Trump clearly said, and I quote: “Russia, I hope you’re able to find” Hillary’s emails. I remember seeing the interview live at the time, and couldn’t believe a candidate could talk like this and not be run out of town. It’s up for posterity on the BBC channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b71f2eYdTc