Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday that she has every intention of accepting an FBI recommendation to indict Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email system while she served as secretary of state, if that’s the recommendation that is presented to her by the FBI.
“I fully expect to accept their recommendations,” she said Friday in a public interview. “I will be accepting their recommendations.”
Hillary Clinton: The Email Scandal Graphiq
The attorney general also admitted that her meeting this week with Clinton’s husband, Bill Clinton, at an airport in Phoenix raises “reasonable” questions. “Certainly my meeting with him raises questions and concerns,” she said.
She also acknowledged that it “has now cast a shadow over how this case will be perceived.”
“The most important thing for me, as the attorney general, is the integrity of the Department of Justice,” Lynch said of her decision to act directly on the FBI’s recommendation.
When asked what she wishes former Attorney General Eric Holder told her before he left, Lynch joked, “Where the lock on the plane door was?”
However, Lynch stopped short of recusing herself from the case, a step many critics demanded in the fall-out from her surprise meeting with Clinton.
Instead, she pledged to abide by the recommendation provided to her by the FBI. By doing so, she retained the ability to review the indictment recommendation while shifting responsibility to FBI Director James Comey for the ultimate decision on whether to press charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee.
FBI agents are investigating whether Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information by circulating sensitive material on the secretary of state’s private network.
Democrats and Republicans alike condemned the private meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton Tuesday in Phoenix. Even supporters of Hillary Clinton conceded the quiet visit created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest in a case already fraught with political implications.
Lynch had characterized the private meeting as an impromptu social visit during which no government business was discussed.
The meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton continues to create political problems for both Clinton and the Obama administration.
Christopher Sign, the local reporter who broke news of the hushed meeting earlier this week, told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly Thursday evening that FBI agents on the tarmac where the two officials’ planes crossed paths had instructed him not take any photographs or to use his cell phone in the area.
