Hillary Clinton bristled at a question over the possibility of her indictment during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, refusing to say whether she’d drop out of the race should the FBI charge her with mishandling classified material and dismissing larger concerns over her improper use of official e-mail.
Though a large portion of Wednesday night’s Univision debate in Miami was taken up by the question of immigration, Univision host Jorge Ramos unexpectedly led the evening with a series of pointed queries on Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state.
“That goes against a memo that you personally sent to your employees in 2011, directing all of them to use official e-mail precisely because of security concerns,” said Ramos. “So it seems that you issued one set of rules for yourself, and a different set of rules for the rest of the department. Who specifically gave you permission to operate your e-mail system as you did? Was it President Barack Obama? And would you drop out of the race if you get indicted?”
“Well Jorge, there’s a lot of questions in there,” she said. “And I’m going to give the same answer I’ve been giving for many months. It wasn’t the best choice, I made a mistake. It was not prohibited. It was not in any way disallowed.”
#related#Clinton pointed to the use of private e-mail by former secretary of state Colin Powell, adding that some of his e-mails have now also been retroactively classified. “I think [Powell] was right when he said, ‘This is an absurdity,’” Clinton said. “And I think what we’ve got here is a case of over-classification. I’m not concerned about it, I’m not worried about it, and no Democrat in America should be either.”
But Ramos persisted, asking again whether she would drop out should the FBI decide to indict her.
“Oh for goodness . . . ” Clinton exploded. “And it’s not going to happen. I’m not even going to answer that.”
The Democratic crowd loudly cheered her response, and Ramos moved on to a question for Bernie Sanders.