Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday called a watchdog’s report that chastised Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s email practices “devastating” and said the whole controversy was a display of “bad judgment” on her part.
“She has bad judgment. This was all bad judgment,” Mr. Trump told reporters in North Dakota.
“Probably illegal — we’ll have to find out what the FBI says about it, but certainly it was bad judgment,” he said. “I just read the report. It’s devastating, the report. It’s devastating.”
“And there’s no reason for it,” he said. “It’s just, skirting on the edge all the time, and you look back at her history and this is her history. It’s a very, very harsh report — done really by Democrats, if you think of it. Appointed by Obama and done by Democrats.”
“So it’s shocking to see it. It’s shocking to see what she did,” he said. “And really more than anything else, it’s bad judgment.”
Mr. Trump had been asked about the notion of Mrs. Clinton exiting the race in light of the report, and he said it would be up to her whether or not she wants to continue running.
The State Department inspector general report, sent to Congress Wednesday, said Mrs. Clinton did break her department’s rules by setting up a private email server to use as secretary of state, that she didn’t report hacking attempts and that she waved off warnings to switch to a more official email account.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign said there wasn’t much new in the report and that it showed her efforts to comply with open records laws.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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