Four of Clinton’s Closest and Vice Potentials Come to Her Defense
Four of Hillary Clinton’s potential vice-presidents defended her on Sunday morning, one day after the FBI interviewed the presumptive Democratic nominee about her use of a private email server while secretary of state in the Obama administration.
All four men dodged questions on whether they were being vetted by the campaign, but spoke positively about Clinton’s participation in the investigation.
The Ohio senator Sherrod Brown said he was “not worried” about Clinton being indicted, noting that she has turned over more than 30,000 emails and released her tax returns – unlike her Republican rival for the presidency, Donald Trump.
“She’s always been willing to talk to authorities,” Brown told ABC’s This Week.
The New Jersey senator Cory Booker told CNN’s State of the Union Clinton would not be indicted. “That’s just not going to happen,” he said.
It is unclear how much longer the email investigation will last or whether Clinton will be prosecuted, although many observers believe her interview signaled that the investigation was near its end. The Democratic National Convention begins in Philadelphia on 25 July.
On Saturday, Clinton’s campaign said she was interviewed for three and a half hours on Saturday at FBI headquarters in Washington. She later told MSNBC she had been “eager” to participate and “pleased to have the opportunity” to help the justice department conclude the investigation.
Critics have questioned the independence of the investigation, following a meeting between the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and Bill Clinton at a Phoenix airport this week.
Lynch, who said the meeting had been unplanned and informal after the two politicians’ planes happened to land on the same tarmac, acknowledged that the meeting “cast a shadow” on the investigation. She said she would “fully accept” whatever recommendations were made by the FBI and prosecutors.
“It’s important to make it clear that that meeting with President Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved,” Lynch said, speaking at the Aspen ideas festival in Colorado earlier this week.
On Sunday morning, Xavier Becerra, a Democratic representative from California also touted as a possible Clinton vice-presidential pick, said the Lynch-Clinton meeting would not be an issue in the investigation.
“The fact that the attorney general, whose integrity is not even in question, has said that she’s going to rely on the recommendations of the FBI investigators and the career prosecutors at justice is a clear sign that it won’t be an issue here,” Becerra told Fox News Sunday.
“Because those who are doing the investigation, those who know the facts, are going to make the final call.”
On Saturday, Trump tweeted: “It was just announced – by sources – that no charges will be brought against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Like I said, the system is totally rigged!” He has said repeatedly that he would indict Clinton if he becomes president.
On Sunday, the former Republican senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has endorsed Trump, would not say he agreed with Trump’s declaration that the investigation was “rigged” in Clinton’s favor.
He did, however, imply that her relationship with the White House could affect the investigation.
“The fact that [Obama is] going to campaign for her in the face of the looming investigation and potential indictment says maybe he knows something that the rest of us don’t know,” Santorum said, on ABC.
Clinton’s use of a private email server was first revealed in March 2015, a month before she launched her bid for the presidency.
“I have said that I’m going to continue to put forth my record, what I have stood for, do everything I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country,” Clinton told MSNBC in an interview first broadcast on Saturday. “I know that’s something that I’m going to keep working on.”
The labor secretary, Tom Perez, another possible Clinton vice-president, told NBC’s Meet the Press people did not trust Trump and said the support Clinton has received so far showed people were looking beyond the email issue.
“And what it reflected was people understand that she is running for president because she wants to break down barriers of opportunity,” Perez said.
The show’s host, Chuck Todd, also asked Perez about Clinton’s position on trade – in opposition to that of the administration in which Perez serves – and his own foreign policy credentials as a potential VP.
“Well, I haven’t run a Miss Universe pageant and I don’t own any golf courses in Scotland,” Perez said, “so I don’t have what Donald Trump has, and I’m very sorry about that.
“But, you know, it’s all about judgment. And Donald Trump is such a volatile individual. And what I have seen working with Secretary Clinton is that she is a steady hand.”
Perez continued his attack on Trump, caling him a “train wreck” on the minimum wage, trade, immigration and “American values”.
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