Clinton said she had meant to point to Comey’s statement that FBI investigators found her to be forthcoming and cooperative during their sit-down with her. Comey, however, said Clinton’s past statements about never sending or receiving classified material were not accurate because investigators found several emails that did contain classified information, though it was not labeled properly, meaning Clinton may have not realized she had received it.
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The Democratic presidential nominee was criticized earlier this week for suggesting during an interview with “Fox News Sunday” that FBI Director James Comey had said her past statements on the e-mail issue were “truthful”.
Clinton’s comments were given a “pants on fire” rating from Politifact and “four Pinnocchios” by the Washington Post.
Clinton made her initial claim during an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News last Sunday. “She said, ‘Look, it was a mistake, and I’ve learned from it, and I’d do something different'”.
“Keep holding all of us accountable”, Clinton told the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at a joint convention, according to Talking Points Memo. Republicans weren’t having it, with the Trump campaign calling her explanation “pretzel-like”.
“I was pointing out … that the Director Comey had said that my answers in my Federal Bureau of Investigation interview were truthful”, Clinton said.
Further, while not explicitly rebuking Clinton’s public comments, Comey highlighted a major problem with them.
For the record, Comey said there were “110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received”.
During the short question-and-answer session, Clinton also detailed some of her plans should she win the White House, promising to make an overhaul of America’s immigration system a “clear, high priority”. She reiterated that it was a “mistake” for her to conduct official business on her private account.
Clinton’s clarification consisted in part of noting that numerous classified emails that were sent over her privately run email server were not marked as such, and no one could have been expected to know that they were classified.
“These [classified] chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters”, Comey said. “I do have this old-fashioned idea: When you run for president, you ought to tell the voters of America what you would do as president”.
HILLARY CLINTON: There is no classified material, so I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements. “But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it”, Comey said.
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Clinton also called for rejecting and standing up against the kinds of “bigotry” and use of “bluster and bullying” we see from Trump’s campaign while noting that she doesn’t care what Trump says about her.
