Philadelphia
Scott Pelley said Hillary Clinton “seemed genuinely surprised” when the CBS anchor brought up the Wikileaks hack of the Democratic National Committee in their interview for 60 Minutes broadcast Sunday.
Pelley joined CBS This Morning Monday to promote the interview, and co-host Norah O’Donnell brought up an unaired portion of the interview. “The specific part of your interview that is drawing interest this morning is her answer to the DNC email scandal, she acted like she was not familiar with what was going on,” said O’Donnell.
Pelley claimed Clinton looked “surprised” by his question. “I got to tell you, if I’m any reader of body language, I’ve known Secretary Clinton for 25 years, and I was struck, as I was reading the emails to her in the interview, her eyes widened as if to say, what is this about? What are you talking about? She seemed genuinely surprised,” Pelley said.
O’Donnell noted the interview actually took place on Saturday. “And she had been on stage introducing Tim Kaine to the other 49 states that don’t know him, and, and I think they missed that stitch in terms of briefing her, she seemed very surprised,” Pelley said.
That’s an odd claim from Pelley at CBS, considering the news of the leak broke on Friday, when Wikileaks posted the 20,000 documents it had hacked online. Multiple news outlets covered the leak on Friday, and the news story continued to grow on Saturday—enough to prompt Pelley to ask Clinton about it. Pelley would have viewers believe that while the story of the leak dominated the national political discussion and Democrats in Philadelphia were buzzing about it, Clinton—who was among those most threatened by the leak’s revelations—was unaware of the story.
CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King expressed her skepticism of Clinton’s lack of knowledge of what was going on at the DNC. “Well, people could say she might not have known the story was going to break, but I think people, it sort of defies for many that she didn’t know anything at all about the emails, that’s the, I think that’s the issue,” she said.
The exchange between Pelley and Clinton over the hack did not air on 60 Minutes on Sunday, though it was partially aired in a preview that aired earlier Sunday on the CBS Evening News and in an online video called 60 Minutes Overtime.
