Hillary Clinton claimed again that the remarks she made were truthful based on what the FBI director said. In a week where numerous polls came out revealing that Mrs. Clinton is leading Donald Trump by 9 or 15 points, and the real estate mogul keeps getting in and out of controversies, many are wondering why on earth was the Democratic nominee talking about her email scandal?
On Friday, the former secretary of state addressed the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), and she was asked to clarify the comments she made on Fox News Sunday while host Chris Wallace was quizzing her.
During the interview, Clinton repeated what she has been saying on the campaign trail. She said that FBI Director James Comey told Congress that the statements she made about her use of a private email server as secretary of state were truthful. Clinton dug herself into a hole by saying:
“Director Comey said that my answers were truthful and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
The Democratic nominee for president, who is ahead of the billionaire in the red state of Georgia by 4 points, added:
“I was communicating with over 300 people in my emailing. They certainly did not believe and had no reason to believe that what they were sending was classified. Now, in retrospect, different agencies come in and say, ‘Well, it should have been.” But that’s not what was happening in real time.'”
Several fact-checkers including The Washington Post and FactCheck.org called her out on those claims. Mrs. Clinton, who was blasted for being dishonest and for acting as a lawyer and even being robotic when she is addressing the email question, tried to use humor to clarify the remarks she made on FOX.
She told the reporters of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists that she “short-circuited,” and added:
“I was pointing out in both of those instances that the director Comey had said that my answers in my FBI interview were truthful. That’s really the bottom line here. And I have said during the interview and in many other occasions over the past months that what I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly.”
She concluded by:
“So I may have short-circuited, and for that I, you know, will try to clarify. I have acknowledged repeatedly that using two email accounts was a mistake.”
Trump has already released an ad blasting Clinton using the “may have short-circuited” line.
