Fred Francis, veteran reporter for NBC News, didn’t hold back during an appearance on Fox News’ MediaBuzz when he blasted Hillary Clinton for the way she has handled the ongoing controversy surrounding her private e-mail server.
Francis argued that “[i]t's now even clearer to the most liberal of reporters who have been supporting her all along that her e-mail and this e-mail debacle, that her e-mail would have been safer if it would have been entrusted to Ashley Madison.”
While the former NBC News reporter admitted he was “making light” of Clinton’s e-mail problems when he suggested they would have been safer on a cheating website, Francis stressed the seriousness of her server containing classified information:
[T]he fact is that all the intelligence experts that we have spoken to say that everybody in the world had access to that e-mail server, except the American people and maybe the FBI. But we don’t know if they'll have access to it.
Earlier in the segment Amy Holmes of Blaze TV pointed out that Hillary Clinton’s problems have become so big “she’s becoming very disappointing to the mainstream media that was intending, I think, to support her, at least privately:
You're seeing these stories. When it was just Republicans attacking Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, for example, the media could say that this was a partisan food fight. But I think a lot of the media, I’m thinking of Ron Fournier who said I was going to vote for her, but after this performance I'm starting to rethink that.
See relevant transcript below.
FNC’s MediaBuzz
August 23, 2015
HOWARD KURTZ: It seems like the mainstream media, Carville aside, has really turned on Hillary, not just on the e-mail debacle, but in kind of describing her as a lousy candidate.
AMY HOLMES: They have. You're seeing these stories. When it was just Republicans attacking Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, for example, the media could say that this was a partisan food fight. But I think a lot of the media, I’m thinking of Ron Fournier who said I was going to vote for her, but after this performance I'm starting to rethink that.
KURTZ: Fournier of National Journal said a year ago he might have even considered working for her because he’s known her as a former Arkansas reporter.
HOLMES: Right, so she’s becoming very disappointing to the mainstream media that was intending, I think, to support her, at least privately.
FRED FRANCIS: It's now even clearer to the most liberal of reporters who have been supporting her all along that her e-mail and this e-mail debacle, that her e-mail would have been safer if it would have been entrusted to Ashley Madison, okay? I mean, I make light of it, but the fact is that all the intelligence experts that we have spoken to say that everybody in the world had access to that e-mail server, except the American people and maybe the FBI. But we don’t know if they'll have access to it.
