Don’t pardon Clinton: Giuliani
‘Leave it to the system we all believe in’
• Rudy Giuliani, a leading contender to be president-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, said Thursday that President Barack Obama shouldn’t pardon Hillary Clinton.
Obama “should leave it to the system we all believe in,” Giuliani said on Fox News.
The White House on Wednesday wouldn’t rule out issuing a pardon to protect Clinton from prosecution over her use of a private email server while she was Obama’s secretary of state, an issue that dogged the Democrat’s presidential campaign.
Trump during the campaign proposed appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. During one debate with Clinton, Trump said that if he were in charge of U.S. law enforcement, Clinton “would be in jail.” Chants of “lock her up!” were a staple at his rallies.
Giuliani suggested the question of pardoning Clinton isn’t just tied to her email, but also to her family’s charitable foundation, which he said is under investigation.
Giuliani said the U.S. has two traditions that are in conflict with each other. One, he said, is that “we try to get over the anger and everything else about an election after it’s over with and put it behind us.”
“I don’t like to see America become a country in which we prosecute people, you know, about politics,” he said. “On the other hand, there are deep and disturbing issues there in which if you don’t investigate them ...”
“They’re going to continue,” one of the Fox News hosts said.
“That’s a very tough balance and that’s why I don’t think President Obama should pardon her,” Giuliani said. “I think President Obama should leave it to the system we all believe in to determine, is she innocent or is she guilty?”
Turning back to the issue of classified information that was at the centre of the FBI probe into Clinton’s server, Giuliani said that if she were pardoned, David Petraeus and James Cartwright also would have to be.
The FBI’s New York field office opened an inquiry into the Clinton Foundation, a step short of a formal investigation. FBI agents sought approval in February to advance the inquiry further, with tools such as subpoenas and wiretaps, but the Justice Department declined to grant the request because officials found the evidence too weak, according to a law enforcement official.
Foundation spokesmen Craig Minassian and Brian Cookstra did not immediately respond to request for comment.