President-elect Trump doesn’t need to make any decisions about prosecuting Hillary Clinton over her private emails, because that decision had already been made, White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted Tuesday.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign manager, said Tuesday morning that Trump did not intend to fulfill his campaign pledge to appoint a special prosecutor that would probe Clinton for her mishandling of classified material, and to examine the allegations against her family’s foundation. But Earnest said the decision was already made for him by the Obama administration.
“We don’t need staffers in the next White House to resolve the question about whether or not a prosecutor should move forward,” Earnest said. “This decision was already reached by senior officials at the Department of Justice.”
Earnest touted the independence of FBI Director James Comey, who became a Democratic target after he announced his intention to reopen the Clinton email case just 11 days before the election.
“His conclusion, after the evidence was presented to him, was that no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with the case,” Earnest said of Comey.
Congressional Republicans had spent more than a year focusing on Clinton’s misdeeds, and many voters found Trump’s vow to hold her accountable an attractive prospect.
But Trump had already signaled he would not pursue a sweeping criminal investigation into Clinton out of respect for national unity, which he has touted as a priority of his early efforts as president-elect.
