The Financial Express (Delhi Edition)
Clinton says knows of no timeline to wrap up FBI e-mail inquiry
Washington, DC, July 4: Hillary Clinton was questioned on Saturday as part of the FBI’s inquiry into her use of a private e-mail server while US secretary of state, a practice that’s dogged her presidential run, fueled Republican charges that she’s unfit for office, and caused Clinton herself to say she wishes she could take it back.
The roughly three-and-ahalf hour meeting at FBI headquarters in Washington was confirmed by Clinton’s campaign. It threatens more turbulence for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee days after Attor ney General Loretta Lynch was criticised for meeting for mer President Bill Clinton privately on an aircraft in Phoenix.
In her first comments on the interview, Clinton said on MSNBC on Saturday that she “was happy I got the opportunity to assist the department and bring this to a conclusion.” The Democrat told NBC’s Chuck Todd, though, that she had “no knowledge of any timeline” for the investigation to conclude. “I’m not going to comment on the process,” she said. “I’m not going to go into any more detail then I already have in public many times.”
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton, said in an earlier e-mailed statement that Clinton’s appearance had been “voluntary.”
Once it finishes its investigation, the FBI will make a recommendation to Lynch about whether to pursue a prosecution of Clinton or her aides, guidance the attorney general said Friday that she expects to accept. And while the holiday-weekend interview doesn’t imply that the for mer first lady and senator from New York faces indictment, the idea of Clinton having met with law enforcement officers will have political consequences.
It’s unclear if Clinton was the final person to be questioned. If so, the probe may be wrapped up before the Democratic National Convention that starts in Philadelphia on July 25 at which Clinton is poised to formally become the first woman presidential nominee for a major US political party.
FBI spokeswoman Susan McKee declined to comment.
The interview makes it “a bad day” for Clinton and her team, said George C Edwards III, who holds a chair in presidential studies at Texas A&M University in College Station. “In heavily polarised partisan politics, people view all such things through their partisan blinders.”
The FBI investigation is focused narrowly on the question of whether Clinton or those writing to her improperly handled classified information by sending it to or from her private e-mail address. Politically, Clinton has been fighting the broader question of whether it was proper to rely on her own email system rather than an official state.gov address.
Bloomberg