Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s generous campaign donations to the spouse of an FBI official charged with investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email practices explain why the former secretary of state escaped indictment, Donald Trump said Monday.
“Just today, there are shocking new revelations, which you’ve seen … about how the Clinton campaign has corrupted our government,” the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd in St. Augustine, Fla.
“It was just learned that one of the closest people to Hillary Clinton, with longstanding ties to her husband and herself … gave more than $675,000 to the campaign of the spouse, the wife of the top FBI official who helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s illegal email server,” Trump said of McAuliffe, drawing boos from his supporters.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that McAuliffe, who served as co-chair of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, contributed vast sums of money to the 2015 Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Under McAuliffe’s direction, the Virginia Democratic party donated an additional $207,788 in the form of mail materials to McCabe’s campaign, according to the Journal.
“So the man that was investigating [Clinton] for the FBI, his wife runs for office and they give her more than $675,000 to run,” Trump explained during his second of five campaign stops this week in the Sunshine State.
“We’ve never had a thing like this in the history of the country,” he said. “This represented a large portion of the money the FBI official’s spouse had for her campaign. It’s absolutely disgraceful. It’s absolutely terrible.
“And it’s unbelievable how Hillary Clinton got away with the email lie, the email scam, the email corruption,” Trump continued. “But now, at least, we have a pretty good idea.”
“We have to investigate the investigation, folks,” said Trump, who has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton if he wins the Nov. 8 election.
The GOP nominee also claimed that Clinton knew of the donations being made to McCabe’s campaign.
“Hillary knew this money was being paid and she has to be held accountable for this,” Trump said. “Yet another crime, one of so many … she knew that money, $675,000-plus, was being paid.”
