7 Big Truth Benders in Hillary Clinton’s CNN Interview

By Published on July 9, 2015

Commentators, pundits and journalists the world over were quick to point out that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first television interview since her April 12th presidential campaign announcement was full of misleading statements and outright lies.

Here are seven of the most questionable statements Hillary Clinton made in the 20-minute interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar:

1. “People should and do trust me.”

“Would you vote for someone that you don’t trust?” Keilar asked Clinton in a discussion of the polling numbers about voters perception of her trustworthiness following the drama over her private email server as secretary of state.

“Well, they – people should and do trust me,” Clinton responded. “And I have every confidence that that will be the outcome of this election.”

Fifty-three percent of American voters said Clinton is not honest and trustworthy in a May Quinnipiac poll. And in a May AP-GFK poll, nearly four in 10 Democrats and more than six in 10 Independents said “honest” is not the best word to describe her.

The likeliest contributors: The thousands of headlines generated from both her ”home brew” civilian email server and from news of the Clinton Foundation’s rolodex of foreign donors.

2. I’m subjected to a “constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the Right … .”

Clinton blamed the email drama and resulting questions in the minds of voters on a vast but baseless right-wing conspiracy. She admitted that Americans should be thinking about those questions.

But she said they were only on the public’s radar because she is subjected to a “constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right.”

The New York Times broke the news in March that Clinton exclusively used a personal email account stored on a private server to conduct government business as secretary of state, and since then every major media outlet has followed the story.

3. “I only used one device.”

Clinton initially told reporters she set up the private server for convenience, because she didn’t want to carry separate devices for her work and her email. “People across the government knew that I used one device,” she reiterated Tuesday. “Maybe it was because I am not the most technically capable person and wanted to make it as easy as possible.”

But in an email to Sidney Blumenthal while she was secretary of state, Clinton mentioned she was without Blackberry coverage after a tropical storm and so had switched to a “new iPad” for her emails.

4. “I’ve never had a subpoena.”

Asked why she deleted more than 30,000 emails while under subpoena, Clinton said: “I’ve never had a subpoena.”

In response, the House Select Committee on Benghazi released its March subpoena to Clinton Wednesday, which it sent directly after it became aware of her personal email account and private server. The subpoena demanded she turn over all records and emails in her possession related to Benghazi.

What she may have meant is that she wasn’t under subpoena when she deleted the emails.

Prior to the subpoena, Clinton’s staff had voluntarily turned over more than 30,000 emails to the State Department and deleted the rest, which were deemed personal and irrelevant. The State Department then provided 900 emails to the Select Committee on Benghazi.

5. “I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of me” 

“Now I didn’t have to turn over anything,” Clinton said, referring to the emails she turned over last year. “I chose to turn over 55,000 pages because I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of me because I knew the vast majority of everything that was official already was in the State Department system.”

But new emails surfaced in June that had not been turned over to the Benghazi committee, suggesting either that Clinton lied about turning all the remaining emails over to the State Department, or that the State Department for some reason didn’t turn all the relevant emails over to the Benghazi committee.

6. Republican presidential candidates are all “in the same general area on immigration.”

Asked about Donald Trump’s comments on immigration, Clinton tried to tie his remarks to the Republican party, saying they’re all “in the same general area on immigration.”

“They don’t want to provide a path to citizenship,” she said. “They range across a spectrum of being either grudgingly welcome or hostile toward immigrants. And I’m going to talk about comprehensive immigration reform.”

The Republican presidential candidates are in very different places on immigration. Former Sen. Rick Santorum is expressly calling for reduced legal immigration and rejects a path to citizenship. Sen. Ted Cruz also rejects a path to citizenship.

But the comprehensive plan Sen. Marco Rubio is outlining includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. And while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has backed off a previous embrace of a pathway to citizenship, but still advocates at least a path to permanent legal status. Both want to dramatically expand legal immigration.

7. On raising taxes: “I’m going to be telling the American people what I propose.” 

Clinton dodged a direct question about tax hikes, saying she will tell the American people what she proposes in an upcoming speech.

“Is raising taxes on the table?” Keilar asked.

“I’m going to put out my policies, and I’ll let other people speak to their policies,” she said.

Hillary’s campaign announced her policy proposals will include tax hikes in June. “We are rolling out major policy proposals over the summer/fall,” her campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted. “Among those proposals will be revenue enhancements.”

 

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Copyright 2015 The Daily Caller News Foundation

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