The day after Hillary Clinton’s “voluntary interview” with the FBI, she appeared this morning on Meet the Press.
From the NBC transcript of the interview:
CHUCK TODD:. . . . Yesterday, the F.B.I. interviewed Hillary Clinton for about three and a half hours at its headquarters right here in Washington D.C. about the use of her private email server while she was secretary of State. I spoke with the former secretary late yesterday on MSNBC, her only interview since meeting with the F.B.I., and asked her whether the description of the interview as “civil and businesslike” was accurate.SEC. HILLARY CLINTON:Well, it was both. It was something I had offered to do since last August. I’ve been eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion.CHUCK TODD:How did your private server, where you kept this classified information, some of which was retroactive, I understand, after your term as Secretary of State, how is that not a violation of this code?SEC. HILLARY CLINTON:I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified. And there is a process for the review of material before it is released to the public. And there were decisions made that material should be classified, I do call that retroactively classifying. So therefore it would not be publicly released. But that doesn’t change the fact as I have explained many times.
That last “as I have explained many times” is the heart (and purpose) of this interview. Todd asked her to “explain” various discrepancies in her statements, and she did so . . . repeating the same tired talking points.
The goal, apparently, is to claim there’s no there there . . on the emails, the server, or the “chance” meeting between her husband and AG Loretta Lynch.
Hillary tells Todd that she didn’t know about the meeting between her husband and Loretta Lynch until she “heard it on the news” (sound familiar?).
The NBC transcript continues:
CHUCK TODD:At the same time, there was another story Clinton would love to try to leave behind, that tarmac meeting at the Phoenix airport between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Given Hillary Clinton’s email troubles, the impromptu exchange was seen by her opponents as evidence of a conspiracy. Even by supporters though, as just bad optics. On MSNBC yesterday, I asked for her reaction to the meeting.[The audio is here]SEC. HILLARY CLINTON:Well, I learned about it in the news. And it was a short, chance meeting at an airport tarmac. Both of their planes, as I understand it, were landing on the same tarmac at about the same time, and the attorney general’s husband was there, they said hello, they talked about grandkids, which is very much on our minds these days, golf, their mutual friend, former Attorney General Janet Reno, it was purely social. They did not veer off of speaking about those kinds of very common exchanges.CHUCK TODD:Do you understand why many in the public, many, some of them are political opponents of yours, some are supporters that thought that was a bad decision by your husband, that that was a mistake and he should have known better?SEC. HILLARY CLINTON:Well, I think hindsight’s 20-20. Both the attorney general and my husband have said that they wouldn’t do it again even though it was, from all accounts that I have heard and seen, an exchange of pleasantries. But obviously, no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn, and they said they would not do it again.
Hindsight is 20/20? A former president, a presidential candidate, and the attorney general of the United States didn’t see the impropriety of this “chance meeting” before the fact? Really?
Watch:
The impact of that “tarmac summit” is clear even to an MSNBC discussion panel.
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