In a telephone interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday (July 3), Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she was “pleased to have the opportunity to assist” the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the use of her private email server.
“It was something I had offered to do since last August. I’d been eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing it’s review to a conclusion,” said Clinton.
Excerpts of the interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd first aired on MSNBC on Saturday. In the, Clinton said she was happy to do the FBI interview, which her spokesman earlier described as “voluntary.”
The FBI interviewed Clinton for three and a half hours on Saturday as part of the probe into her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, her campaign said.
The interview at FBI headquarters in Washington followed a week of intense public focus on the investigation and on Clinton’s viability as a presidential candidate, with four months to go to the election. Her campaign has tried for months to downplay the controversy as a distraction.
It was not clear if the questioning of Clinton signaled an imminent conclusion to the investigation in a pivotal time for the presidential race. It does follow FBI interviews of several of Clinton’s former staff members, as well as her top aide Huma Abedin.
Clinton is expected to be formally nominated as the Democratic candidate for the Nov. 8 presidential election at the party’s convention in less than four weeks.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016
