[jwplayer ]
Hillary Clinton shrugged off questions about her email scandal and the chances for her to be indicted, telling a televised audience at the CNN/Univision debate in Miami she wasn’t the least bit worried.
Moderator Jorge Ramos asked Clinton directly who gave her permission to operate a home-based server, and asked bluntly if she would drop out of the race if she was indicted.
“It was not in any way disallowed,” Clinton said. “My predecessors did the same thing and many other people in the government … I did not send and receive any classified emails.”
And in answer to his followup, and whether she would quit the race if indicted?
“Oh my goodness, it’s not even going to happen,” Clinton said. “I’m not even answering that question.”
The former secretary of state also said, in reference to an indictment: “I’m not concerned about it, I’m not worried about it, and no Democrat or American should be either.”
Ramos – who disclosed at the outset of the debate his daughter works for the Clinton campaign – didn’t let the matter drop.
He pointed out Clinton’s private server system seems a contradiction to a memo she sent to State staffers at the time, requiring they use official government-sanctioned email accounts “precisely because of security concerns,” he said, the Hill reported.
And he added: “So it seems that you issued one set of rules for yourself and a different set of rules for the rest of the State Department. So who specifically gave you permission to operate your email system as you did. Was it President Obama?”
Clinton’s response?
She admitted the private server “wasn’t the best choice,” but reminded others in her position had done similarly.
“What you’re talking about is retroactive classification,” she said. “Some of the parts of the government – we’re not exactly sure who – has concluded that some of the emails should be now retroactively classified. They just said the same thing to former Secretary Colin Powell. Now I think he was right when he said this was an absurdity.”
Federal authorities are looking into Clinton’s private email server she set up in her New York home to determine just how many email messages marked classified went through her system, and who else saw them. The investigation has fueled perceptions among voters of her dishonesty, translating at times into higher poll numbers for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
