Libertarian VP candidate: I’m ‘vouching’ for Clinton

Bill Weld, the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee, said on Tuesday that he’s “vouching” for Hillary Clinton in the face of attacks from Donald Trump.

{mosads}During an interview on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” the former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts was pressed about whether he is loyal enough to the Libertarian Party to risk throwing the election to Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

“Well I’m here vouching for Mrs. Clinton,” Weld said, “and I think it’s high time somebody did, and I’m doing it based on my personal experience with her. I think she deserves to have people vouch for her other than members of the Democratic National Committee, so I’m here to do that.”

Weld, who served as the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division in the 1980s, also defended the Democratic nominee over a new FBI review of emails related to its investigation into Clinton’s private server, saying, “There’s nothing there.”

Maddow responded by pointing to a campaign press release from the Libertarian ticket that blasted Clinton over the new revelation. She asked Weld if he disagreed with the statement, which was released under his and presidential nominee Gary Johnson’s names.

“That’s correct,” he said, noting that he and Johnson have had a number of disagreements in the past.

“We keep talking them through. I talk with Gary every other day. We’re on different coasts usually, but we keep in touch. And yeah, no, I do not agree with that release.”

Weld suggested that voters in swing states who don’t want to support the Libertarian ticket should back Clinton.

“I’ve known her for 40 years,” he said. “I’ve worked with her, I know her well professionally, I know her well personally. I know her to be a person of high moral character, a reliable person, an honest person — however so much Mr. Trump may rant and rave to the contrary.”