On Monday's New Day, during a segment with Wisconsin Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo made his latest claim that FBI Director James Comey found that Hillary Clinton did not commit a crime in her handling of her State Department work email, even though the FBI director merely declined to recommend trying to prosecute her without directly stating his view on whether she committed a crime. Cuomo: "There's no question that the email thing was wrong. It was unusual for Comey to say 'extremely careless.' The FBI doesn't usually talk that way, but certainly he echoed the way a lot of people feel. I'm not asking about that. I'm saying, Comey says there's no crime."
As much of the segment was devoted to Cuomo charging that GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is overstating the criminal case against Clinton, Rep. Duffy at one point jabbed the CNN host as being biased in favor of Clinton. Duffy: "Hey, Chris, if I'm going to be a little surly with you this morning, I would say, 'Hey, Chris, you're supporting someone.' But I won't go that far. Or the Democrats are supporting someone."
Laughing, Cuomo joked that Rep. Duffy might be imitating Trump in his choice of words: "You just did. Where did you learn that? From Trump? It doesn't work that way."
Recalling the case against Clinton, Duffy continued:
You're supporting someone who actually took top secret information and put it on a private server. You're supporting someone who destroyed 33,000 emails with a bleach bit and then smashed her phones. And the FBI said she was extremely careless. So, to look at Donald Trump and say, Mr. Trump, yeah, he's had some issues with the FBI, that's maybe one offense, but comparing that to what Hillary Clinton did, with regard to top secret information, there is absolutely no comparison between those two.
After joking that he would likely hear from Trump supporters about Duffy accusing him of being biased, Cuomo denied that Clinton has broken the law:
But there's no question that the email thing was wrong. It was unusual for Comey to say "extremely careless." The FBI doesn't usually talk that way, but certainly he echoed the way a lot of people feel. I'm not asking about that. I'm saying, Comey says there's no crime.
Your candidate for President, the nominee of your party, says, "Yes, there is. He's lying. There's a crime." Comey says, "We've looked at the new emails. I can't advance the case." Your nominee says he's lying, they didn't really look at all those emails. Is that responsible behavior from someone who will be President of the United States?
Duffy then pushed back:
So, first off, Chris, I think prosecutors -- and I was a prosecutor for 10 years, I know you're a lawyer, I look at Trey Gowdy and Trey Gowdy's comments in regard to the hearing. There is some disagreement about whether the FBI could actually prosecute Hillary Clinton for having these top secret emails on a private server. No doubt about it.
And, in fact, she came to the Congress and said that she didn't send or receive classified information, but then Director Comey came in and said, "No, no, actually she did. She had classified information on her server. She sent and received it from that server." And therefore she lied to Congress as well. So I don't buy the idea that she couldn't be prosecuted.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, November 7, New Day on CNN:
8:07 a.m. ET
CHRIS CUOMO: Congressman, the reason, I would suspect, that you take the FBI at their word is because of two things: One, you're being a responsible public official. And, two, you don't have any proof otherwise. You are backing a man for President who does not act on those bases. He'll say that the FBI is essentially lying. He has no proof, and he will spread that doubt about one of these critical institutions of our democracy for his own political gain, and you say you don't focus on what Donald Trump says and does. Don't you have to if you want him to be President?
REP. SEAN DUFFY (R-WI): Hey, Chris, if I'm going to be a little surly with you this morning, I would say, "Hey, Chris, you're supporting someone." But I won't go that far. Or the Democrats are supporting someone.
CUOMO (laughing): You just did. Where did you learn that? From Trump? It doesn't work that way.
DUFFY: You're supporting someone who actually took top secret information and put it on a private server. You're supporting someone who destroyed 33,000 emails with a bleach bit and then smashed her phones. And the FBI said she was extremely careless. So, to look at Donald Trump and say, Mr. Trump, yeah, he's had some issues with the FBI, that's maybe one offense, but comparing that to what Hillary Clinton did, with regard to top secret information, there is absolutely no comparison between those two. And so if Americans are evaluating Donald Trump with regard to emails and the FBI and Hillary Clinton, hands down Donald Trump will win in that analysis.
CUOMO: But how is that for comparison? And I'm going to assume -- I'm going to assume, for the sake of our friendship, that you're being rhetorical when you're calling me out as being for Clinton-
DUFFY: I am, I am.
CUOMO: -but that's okay, you just gave food to all the Trumpites. Now, all morning, I'll have to hear it. I hope you feel good about yourself, Duffy.
DUFFY: I'm kidding.
CUOMO: But there's no question that the email thing was wrong. It was unusual for Comey to say "extremely careless." The FBI doesn't usually talk that way, but certainly he echoed the way a lot of people feel. I'm not asking about that. I'm saying, Comey says there's no crime. Your candidate for President, the nominee of your party, says, "Yes, there is. He's lying. There's a crime." Comey says, "We've looked at the new emails. I can't advance the case." Your nominee says he's lying, they didn't really look at all those emails. Is that responsible behavior from someone who will be President of the United States?
DUFFY: So, first off, Chris, I think prosecutors -- and I was a prosecutor for 10 years, I know you're a lawyer, I look at Trey Gowdy and Trey Gowdy's comments in regard to the hearing. There is some disagreement about whether the FBI could actually prosecute Hillary Clinton for having these top secret emails on a private server. No doubt about it.
And, in fact, she came to the Congress and said that she didn't send or receive classified information, but then Director Comey came in and said, "No, no, actually she did. She had classified information on her server. She sent and received it from that server." And therefore she lied to Congress as well. So I don't buy the idea that she couldn't be prosecuted. I will cede the point that the FBI chose not to prosecute her. And that doesn't mean she hasn't committed a crime or committed bad acts and endangered American national security.
