Hillary Clinton said Thursday she’s “absolutely” certain the controversy over her personal email server when she helmed the State Department won’t blow up her presidential campaign and “100 percent confident” the FBI probe would find no wrongdoing.
Speaking at Thursday night’s Democratic primary debate, Clinton blamed Republicans for seeking to gin up controversy, likening the email controversy to the GOP’s investigation around her response to the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.
“Before the emails it was Benghazi and the Republicans were stirring up so much controversy over that, and I testified for 11 hours and answered their questions,” Clinton said. “They basically said ‘yeah we didn’t get her, we tried, that was all a political ploy.’ “
{mosads}Clinton pointed to a revelation today that former Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also used personal email accounts.
Clinton insisted that she never sent or received classified information, and that the real issue was that information received is often designated as classified retroactively.
“I never sent or received any classified material, they are retroactively classifying it,’” she said. “I agree completely with Secretary Powell who said today this is an absurdity. I think the American people will know it’s an absurdity, and I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever.”
The FBI is investigating Clinton’s unconventional email server and use of a personal email account, and some Republicans are speculating it will lead to an indictment.
Clinton said there’s no chance of that happening.
“I am 100 percent confident, this is a security review requested and carried out that will be resolved,” she said. “But I have to add, if there’s a security review about me, there will have to be security reviews for a lot of other people including Republican officeholders because we have this absurd situation of retroactive classifications, honest to goodness, this just beggars the imagination.”
White House rival Bernie Sanders, who at the first Democratic debate refused to attack Clinton on the issue because he said he’s “sick of the damn emails,” again declined to make an issue of it.
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“I’m feeling exactly the same way I felt at the first debate,” Sanders said. “There’s a process under way and I will not politicize it.”
The Vermont senator added that “not a day goes by” when he’s not asked to attack Clinton on the issue.
“I will continue to refrain from that,” he said.