Cable news continued its steady drumbeat of negative coverage for Hillary Clinton this week, with reporters and commentators alike hammering away at the former secretary of state’s ongoing email scandal.
At the heart of the many unflattering predictions and remarks aimed at the Democratic presidential frontrunner is news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized her private email server. The federal government is investigating now whether Clinton illegally sent or received classified information over her unauthorized email server when she served as secretary of state.
At MSNBC, it “looks really bad” that the FBI had to seize Clinton’s server after she assured Americans that nothing classified went through her server.
Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin said on “Morning Joe” that the FBI’s involvement signals there’s “political and potentially criminal danger” for the former secretary of state.
“Politically, it’s a no-win situation for her,” he said. “If they recover the information from the emails, the 30,000 personal ones, I think it’s almost certainly the case that someone will find something that should have been turned over, and that would be a problem for her.”
“If it’s been fully deleted and permanently erased… I think people will say, ‘Wow, why did Hillary Clinton go to such length to permanently delete the e-mails?'” he added. “And the question will linger forever, what was on there?”
At Fox News, conservative author and commentator Charles Krauthammer suggested this week that Democratic voters already distrust Clinton, and the server scandal is only making things worse. He also said that this widespread distrust on the left is what pushed her to give in eventually and turn over her server.
“The pressure was so intense on Hillary that it really had to happen. It was only a question of when. I think she decided there was no use in hanging on. She was going to have to eventually release it. But as we said, she is now hostage,” he said.
He added, “I don’t think the Democratic left base believes a word she says when she changes her positions and heads leftward.”
CNN meanwhile kept after the story, asking in an article online whether “Hillary Clinton’s scandal playbook save her this time?”
As CNN asked this, it also aired comments from an array of conservative lawmakers, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Rep. Try Gowdy, R-S.C., who were more than willing to suggest that Clinton may have engaged in potentially illegal behavior.
“Breaking news: Hillary Clinton’s emails are being investigated by the FBI. Our nation’s top secrets could be on that server. Question for service members: If you had been reckless with the nation’s secrets, what would have happened to you?” Jindal asked Wednesday, according to CNN.
“Why should rules be different for Clinton? I’m tired of the political class thinking they’re on higher ground,” he added.
Gowdy, who chairs the congressional committee investigating Clinton’s role in the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, had more of the same to say.
“[It’s] about damn time,” he said, referring to reports that Clinton had finally surrendered her server to federal authorities.
He added in reference to newsrooms that reported incorrectly that Clinton turned over the server simply because she felt like it, “I can’t help but smile at the notion that somebody is voluntarily turning something over to the FBI. They generally don’t ask. They generally tell you to do so.”
He also took on Clinton claiming that there was never any classified information on her private server.
“Well, that is patently false,” he said. “What I’m primarily concerned with is whether or not I’m going to have access to records that I need to do the job that the House asked me to do.”
“If she were interested in cooperation she wouldn’t have done any of the things she’s done to date. This was not about cooperation … frankly, it’s not about convenience, it’s about control. She wanted to control access to the public record, and she almost got away with it but she didn’t.”
Meanwhile, as Clinton continues to take a beating on all major cable news networks, her Democratic rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., continues to rise in the polls, and his campaign rallies continue to grow in attendance.
