FBI interviews Clinton about email server

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The FBI interviewed Hillary Clinton on Saturday about her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, her campaign announced after the meeting, as federal investigators neared the end of the probe that has hung over her White House bid.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, gave a voluntary interview for 31/2 hours at FBI headquarters in Washington, her campaign said.

“She is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Department of Justice in bringing this review to a conclusion,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said. “Out of respect for the investigative process, she will not comment further on her interview.”

Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment Saturday.

For Clinton, the interview indicates that the Justice Department’s yearlong probe is drawing to a close only four weeks before she is set to be formally nominated as the Democrats’ choice to succeed President Barack Obama.

Clinton’s FBI interview was expected, and it does not suggest that she or anyone else is likely to face prosecution. If Clinton and her aides are exonerated, it might help brush aside a major distraction throughout her campaign that has made many voters question her trustworthiness.

But as the past week shows, the case is complicated. Clinton sat down with the FBI just days after her husband, former President Bill Clinton, walked across a hot airport tarmac in Phoenix for an impromptu meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Lynch’s husband. The couple had just landed.

The nation’s top law-enforcement official later expressed regret that she had met with the former president, whose plane was about to depart Phoenix, even though she said it was social in nature and they did not discuss the email review. Bill Clinton nominated Lynch as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999.

Lynch said Friday that she intended to accept the findings and recommendations of career prosecutors who have spent months investigating the case. As far as the meeting with Clinton, she said in hindsight that she would not do it again.

An aide to Bill Clinton said Saturday that the former president recognized how others could view his meeting with Lynch and agreed with her that he would not do it again. The aide was not authorized to be named and issued the statement on condition of anonymity, in response to news media queries.

For her part, Hillary Clinton told NBC News on Saturday that she learned about the meeting between her husband and Lynch through the news media and described it as they did – “It was purely social” – and said they didn’t discuss the investigation.