CNN correspondent Brianna Keilar talked tough about Hillary on Sunday’s State of the Union after going soft in her Tuesday interview. Keilar suggested much of what Hillary said on e-mails wouldn’t pass a fact check.
She directly replied to former Obama communications director Dan Pfieffer, who when asked if Hillary “stepped in it” on the e-mail questions, replied “Well, I think she was technically correct but probably overly precise.” There was no laugh track.
BASH: What was your read on how she handled the trust question in particular?
KEILAR: I was surprised that she didn't show a little more contrition. Because talking to Democrats, including Democrats who really want to see her in the White House, they'll say, she didn't handle the e-mail situation right. The Clinton Foundation controversy, that's also a self-inflicted wound. And so I'm surprised that she didn't give more on that.
[To Pfeiffer] You said she's technically correct. I would say actually she's technically incorrect to say, I've never had a subpoena. That's not correct.
If you put in the context, what the campaign will say is that I was asking her about facing a subpoena that she wiped her server, they'll say that's not true. But the other thing is, the campaign hasn't been clear about when she wiped her server of her work e-mails.
So there's no way to even really completely fact check what she's saying because they don't want to get into all of the details of those things. But I did think on the e-mail answer there were a number of things that didn't stand -- that didn't pass the fact check.
Where, you know, she's basically arguing here, you know, I didn't delete the e-mails while under a subpoena. When your argument is, I wiped my server but it wasn't when I was under a subpoena I don't know that you're on some tremendous moral high ground.
Being surprised Hillary "didn't show contrition" in a scandal suggests naivete in a supposedly hard-bitten reporter. Does anyone remember a Clinton scandal where Hillary showed contrition?
In Sunday's Washington Post, their resident "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler gave Hillary Clinton three Pinocchios on her e-mail claims. (Kessler strangely avoided any mention of her bald-faced I-never-got-a-subpoena lie.) He concluded:
In reality, Clinton’s decision to use a private e-mail system for official business was highly unusual and flouted State Department procedures, even if not expressly prohibited by law at the time. Moreover, while she claims “everything I did was permitted,” she appears to have not complied with the requirement to turn over her business-related e-mails before she left government service. That’s a major misstep that she has not acknowledged.
