Democratic US presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s interview with the FBI might signal that the US Department of Justice is nearing the end of its yearlong probe of her use of a private e-mail server while she was US secretary of state, a controversy that has hung over her White House bid.
“I’ve been eager to do it, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion,” Clinton said in describing the FBI session to NBC’s Meet the Press. She agreed that the tone of meeting with investigators had been civil and business-like.
Clinton said she had no knowledge of any timeline for the review and would not comment on whether she was given an indication that charges would not be filed.
Photo: EPA
The former first lady gave a voluntary interview for three-and-a-half hours on Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington, her campaign announced. Spokespeople for the FBI and the Department of Justice declined to comment.
The interview, which had been expected to take place before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, did not suggest that Clinton or anyone else is likely to face prosecution. If the former senator and secretary of state and her aides are exonerated, it might help brush aside a major distraction that has made many voters question her trustworthiness.
Republican US presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has repeatedly said the e-mail issue undermines Clinton’s fitness for office and suggested she would receive leniency from a Democratic administration. Following reports of Clinton’s FBI interview, Trump tweeted: “It is impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!”
While she was US President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton exclusively used a private e-mail server for her government and personal e-mails, rather than the Department of State’s e-mail system. The Associated Press revealed the existence of the server in March last year.
Clinton has said relying on a private server was a mistake, but that other secretaries of state had also used a personal e-mail address.
The FBI is investigating the potential mishandling of sensitive information. The matter was referred last summer by the inspectors general for the Department of State and intelligence community following the discovery of e-mails that were later determined to contain classified material.
Clinton sat down with the FBI just days after her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, had an impromptu meeting with US Attorney General Loretta Lynch while at a Phoenix airport in separate planes. That Bill Clinton would approach Lynch while her Department of Justice was investigating his wife’s actions, and that Lynch would speak to him, opened a new angle of criticism about the Clintons’ judgment and sense of entitlement.
Lynch, while maintaining that their discussion on Monday was purely personal and did not touch on the e-mail server, on Friday said she regretted meeting with the former president. Bill Clinton joined her in saying he would not do it again, either, in light of the impression it gave. He had nominated Lynch as US attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999.
Asked about the ongoing investigation, Lynch on Friday said that she intended to accept the findings and recommendations of career prosecutors who have spent months on the case.
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