Ignoring questions didn’t work, and denying certain allegations only made the controversy worse. Now, with the FBI claiming the private server that once contained Hillary Clinton’s State Department e-mails was “wiped clean” and Democrats becoming skittish over their frontrunner’s prospects, the Clinton campaign is launching a counter-offensive against the press.
The strategy began Wednesday evening during a press conference with the candidate herself. Repeatedly asked by Fox News’s Ed Henry whether she had “tried to wipe the whole server,” Clinton dodged the question multiple times before she got snarky. “What, like with a cloth?” she said sarcastically. “I don’t know how it works digitally at all.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=cj-XB6vxNcY
The Clinton campaign’s attempt to paint the e-mail controversy and resultant political fallout as a media conspiracy may not meet with much success. Similar efforts in the past did little to derail coverage of the issue. And a CNN/ORC poll released today shows that just 37 percent of independents believe she didn’t do anything wrong by using a private server.
— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.