Donald Trump’s campaign and the GOP said notes from Hillary Clinton’s FBI interview released Friday prove beyond all doubt that the former secretary of state is dishonest and untrustworthy.
“Hillary Clinton is applying for a job that begins each day with a top secret intelligence briefing, and the notes from her FBI interview reinforce her tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty,” Trump’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, said in a statement.
“Clinton’s secret email server was an end run around government transparency laws that wound up jeopardizing our national security and sensitive diplomatic efforts. On more than 2,000 occasions classified material was exposed on her private server, including highly sensitive top secret information and intelligence,” he said.
Among the details revealed Friday in the FBI’s interview notes of Clinton was that she told investigators she didn’t understand the State Department’s classification system, an admission that comes even after she spent four years sending and receiving classified intel over private and unauthorized email server.
Clinton also said in her interview with the FBI that she didn’t recall ever receiving formal training on how to handle classified intelligence.
“Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined,” the FBI’s notes read. “Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system.”
The Trump campaign maintained Friday that the notes show Clinton is absolutely untrustworthy, and that she shouldn’t be trusted with national security let alone the Oval Office.
“[W]hat we are once again seeing in the latest email productions from the State Department: rampant conflicts of interest and a pay-to-play culture that rewarded Clinton Foundation donors with access and favors,” Miller said.
“Clinton’s reckless conduct and dishonest attempts to avoid accountability show she cannot be trusted with the presidency and its chief obligation as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces,” he said.
The Republican National Committee followed Trump’s lead, and released a statement of its own blasting Clinton for dereliction of duty.
“The FBI’s summary of their interview with Hillary Clinton is a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency. Clinton’s answers either show she is completely incompetent or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public. Either way it’s clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday in a statement.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who has headed Congress’ investigation into Clinton’s handling of the Sept. 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, took a different route Friday, and instead directed his attention at the FBI and its handling of its examination of the Democratic nominee’s use of a private email server.
“The FBI selectively releasing Secretary Clinton’s interview summary is of little benefit to the public unless and until all relevant documents and witness interview summaries are released,” the congressman said.
“The public is entitled to all relative information, including the testimony of the witnesses at Platte River Networks, the entity which maintained the private server. The public will find the timeline and witness responses and failures to respond instructive,” Gowdy said.
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This article has been updated.
