Emails still sticky issue for Clinton
Analysis: Campaign likely damaged even if FBI probe clears her
WASHINGTON — No matter how the FBI investigation into the handling of sensitive information on Hillary Clinton’s personal computer server ends, it is likely to hurt her campaign for president.
If the former secretary of state is indicted, she will face further questions about her honesty and perhaps even calls for her to step aside. If she isn’t indicted, critics will accuse the Obama administration of letting her escape charges merely because they want her to win the election.
Clinton was interviewed by the FBI on Saturday for 3½ hours at its headquarters in Washington, according to her campaign, suggesting that the inquiry is nearing its end.
In a telephone interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC after her meeting, Clinton said: “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.”
For Clinton, the FBI interview indicates that the Justice Department’s yearlong probe is drawing to a close only four weeks before she is set to be formally nominated as the Democrats’ choice to succeed President Barack Obama.
Clinton’s FBI interview was expected, and it does not suggest that she or anyone else is likely to face prosecution.
However it is concluded, events last week indicated anew that Clinton is likely to emerge scarred. A new controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the case and Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s refusal to assign it to a special prosecutor far removed from the White House were reminders that critics would always say that political favoritism toward Clinton tainted any decision to clear her.
Under pressure after she met privately with Clinton’s husband last week at his invitation, Lynch announced Friday that she expects to accept the recommendation of investigators and prosecutors at the FBI and the Justice Department as well as FBI Director James Comey, a Republican, in the case.
“I fully expect to accept their recommendations,” she said.
She said that she still plans to review the case, which was begun by the FBI’s Counter intelligence Division after classified information was found in some of Clinton’s emails last year.
Clinton’s campaign did not comment on the meeting between Lynch and the expresident. But it has raised questions about its propriety given the investigation, and congressional Republicans have renewed calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor in the case.
DonSmaltz, a lawyer appointed as an independent counsel to investigate former President Bill Clinton’s secretary of agriculture, Mike Espy, in the 1990s, said Lynch should have appointed a special prosecutor last year.
“I think she would have a more thorough investigation,” he said. “The public could have more confidence in whatever the outcome is.”
At least 2,079 emails that Clinton sent or received contained classified material, according to a State Department review of emails Clinton turned over after she left the department. Most were at the confidential level, which is the lowest level of classification, but a few were at the top secret level.
None of Clinton’s emails was marked as classified during her time as secretary, State Department officials say, but intelligence officials say some material was clearly classified at the time. Clinton initially said she did not send or receive any classified information — a denial she later adjusted, saying that none was marked as classified at the time.
Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, has repeatedly said the email issue undermines Clinton’s fitness for office, and he suggested she will receive leniency from a Democratic administration.
On Saturday, in a statement after the meeting, the Republican National Committee said that Clinton “has just taken the unprecedented step of becoming the first major party presidential candidate to be interviewed by the FBI as part of a criminal investigation surrounding her reckless conduct.”