Hillary Clinton’s seemingly grown far more candid on the campaign trail overnight. She’ll likely never approach the dominant media style of Donald Trump, but she’s making her mark in some late-breaking impromptu rants that show she’s reaching out beyond rehearsed encounters. This is a subtle image renovation (so far) while entering general election territory. The task will be to introduce a more personal side of the candidate, rather than simply concentrating on policy and deflecting Trump attacks.
Unfortunately for her campaign, Clinton is still trailed by lingering controversies — including Benghazi and her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state — which affect the public’s perception of her trustworthiness factor. FBI Director James Comey previously declared Clinton to be “extremely careless” with her email security, but declined to recommend charges. Attorney General Loretta Lynch deferred to the FBI view, but the State Department has since reopened the investigation.
Questions about the matter continue to plague her interviews, and Politifact debunked Clinton’s recent claim that “Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people.” This was in reference to Clinton’s public statements, but Politifact confirms that Comey was only speaking of a July closed-door interview, which he said provided “no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.”
On Friday, Clinton addressed the matter once more during a somewhat awkward speech to a joint conference of black and Hispanic journalists:
“I was pointing out … that Director Comey had said that my answers in my FBI interview were truthful. That really is the bottom line here … What I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly. I may have short-circuited and for that I will try to clarify.”
Clinton then insisted once more that she’d “never sent or received” classified information over the private email server, which is completely different from the FBI’s conclusion that Clinton’s server contained “very sensitive, highly classified information.” But at this gathering of journalists, Clinton said she’d claimed responsibility for the incident, and she’d love the chance to do it all again. This echoes Clinton’s recent admission that she made a regrettable mistake, which was wrong because of “what it has generated.” As for Clinton’s claim of short-circuiting, she’s still expressing regret for the private server, but indeed, there seem to be some crossed wires.
(Via CNN & Politifact)