Hillary Clinton Tries to ‘Clarify and Explain’ Controversial Comments About Email Probe

Republicans Friday slammed Hillary Clinton’s effort to “clarify and explain” a statement she made that FBI Director James Comey said that her previous answers about her private email use were “truthful” to a group of journalists, with Donald Trump’s campaign labeling it as “habitual lying” that endangered national security.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday” last week, Clinton claimed Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey found her answers on the controversy “truthful” and “consistent” with her past public statements.

After being hammered by fact-checkers for that statement, including a “Pants On Fire” rating from PolitiFact, Clinton said she may have “short-circuited” with her remark and claimed she and Wallace talked “past each other”. But when asked whether Clinton had been truthful with the American public, Comey responded, “That’s a question I’m not qualified to answer”. She seems to be conflating the true- what she said to the F.B.I. and what she said to the American public. “That really is the bottom line here”, Clinton said.

Clinton also made a reference to Comey’s testimony on the existence of about 100 emails containing classified information at the time they were sent or received – but she continued to suggest that they were not marked classified at the time and were retroactively classified.

The campaign of Republican nominee Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee immediately released statements Friday portraying Clinton as a liar who’d failed to take the opportunity to “come clean about her secret email setup”. “I think, who knows, but I think”.

THE FACTS: Comey has declined to say precisely what Clinton told FBI investigators, but he has never directly called Clinton’s comments truthful. She added that the Democrat “then [brought] back one of her previous explanations” – that she “never sent or received anything that was marked classified”. (As I write this I can hear our Web traffic crashing.) She delivered a speech created to soften up the room – resulting in applause from the audience throughout the event – before moving to questions. Are you guys going to be more transparent?

‘Can you conclude here whether or not Secretary Clinton lied to the American pubic about sending and receiving classified emails?’ Todd asked. She said it was a mistake.

No, no, he didn’t say that, but that’s not even what I’m talking about.

‘Chuck, let me just say this, I’m going to jump right to the punch line, ‘ Kaine began.

“I may have short-circuited it, and for that I will try to clarify”, she told inquiring reporters. In response to questions from lawmakers, Comey indicated that Clinton or another government official in her position “should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for a classified conversation.

Becerra accused Wallace of not playing other clips of Comey’s testimony that she had no knowledge of some emails being classified.