WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump won’t push for prosecutors to investigate Hillary Clinton for her email practices or the operations of the Clinton Foundation, a top aide said Tuesday.
“I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content” to others, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC.
Mr. Trump, during one of three debates with his Democratic rival, had said he would direct the attorney general to launch an investigation of Mrs. Clinton, whom he regularly referred to as “crooked Hillary.” He said repeatedly that she should be in jail, and his supporters often yelled “lock her up” at his rallies.
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” he said during a debate in October.
In the days after the election, he showed signs of wavering, telling The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he hadn’t decided how to proceed. “It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform,” he said at the time.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation probed Mrs. Clinton’s email practices, which involved the use of a personal server while serving as secretary of state, and didn’t pursue charges. It concluded she and her aides were “extremely careless” in handling sensitive information but that “no charges were appropriate.”
Mr. Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that Mrs. Clinton broke the law. During the second presidential debate, he said that she should be “in jail” and threatened to appoint a special prosecutor to look into her email arrangement.
It seems pretty clear that Trump never really intended to prosecute all along.
There is some merit in that decision, because it is highly questionable whether or not prosecution had any chance given flip-flops and the initial bad decision by FBI director James Comey.
On the other hand, numerous people are in jail for far less than what Hillary did. Also, people will start to wonder “what’s the next broken promise?”
Right or wrong, Trump decided to move along.
