FBI interviews Hillary Clinton for more than three hours in private server probe
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The FBI interviewed Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for three-and-a-half hours on Saturday, as part of the probe into her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
The interview at FBI headquarters in Washington followed a week of intense public focus on the investigation and on Clinton’s viability as a presidential candidate, with four months to go to the election. Her campaign has tried for months to downplay the controversy as a distraction.
In an interview broadcast on MSNBC, Clinton said she was happy to do the FBI interview, which her spokesman earlier described as “voluntary.”
“I’ve been answering questions for over a year” regarding the private email server, Clinton said.
It was not clear if the questioning of Clinton signaled an imminent conclusion to the investigation in a pivotal time for the presidential race. It does follow FBI interviews of several of Clinton’s former staff members, as well as her top aide Huma Abedin.
Clinton is expected to be formally nominated as the Democratic candidate for the November 8 presidential election at the party’s convention in less than four weeks.
“Timing of FBI interview, between primaries and convention, probably good timing for @HillaryClinton,” tweeted David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama who served as the chief strategist for his two presidential campaigns. “Best to get it behind her.”
Clinton is currently the front-runner for the White House, with polls showing her leading presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said it was “impossible for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton. What she did was wrong!”
The FBI is investigating whether anyone in Clinton’s operation broke the law as result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. One of the questions is whether they mishandled classified information on the server.
Clinton and her staff have struggled to respond to accusations that her use of the server in violation of State Department protocol means she is untrustworthy. Trump has said the investigation should disqualify her from being president.
FBI Director James Comey said in testimony to Congress in March that he felt pressure to complete the investigation quickly. Adding to the uncertainty over Clinton is the FBI’s refusal to say who is the target of its investigation.
Republican lawmakers have called for an independent investigation, saying they do not trust the Justice Department to handle the inquiry with impartiality. Republicans, including Trump, intensified their criticism of the process on Thursday after news emerged of Lynch’s meeting with Bill Clinton.
Lynch said she would accept whatever recommendations the career prosecutors working on the case made about whether to prosecute Clinton.
Clinton held a nine-point lead over Trump in a Reuters poll released Friday.