The Washington Post Fact Checker awarded Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton ‘Four Pinocchios’ — a failing grade for her Sunday interview with Fox News Sunday.
In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Hillary claimed that FBI Director stated her answers were “truthful” and “consistent,” while defending her use of a private email server. “[FBI Director James Comey] said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”
The Fact Checker at the Washington Post wasn’t buying this as the truth, ultimately picking apart Hillary’s statement to give it “Four Pinocchios” — the worst rating for truthfulness.
“Clinton is cherry-picking statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server,” the Washington Post wrote. “This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation.”
Continue explaining its determination, the Washington Post compares Hillary’s public statement to Comey’s congressional testimony to show the contradiction between both remarks.
“As we have seen repeatedly in Clinton’s explanations of the email controversy, she relies on excessively technical and legalistic answers to explain her actions. While Comey did say there was no evidence she lied to the FBI, that is not the same as saying she told the truth to the American public — which was the point of Wallace’s question. Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.”
The Washington Post continued, “Although Comey did say many emails were retroactively classified, he also said that there were some emails that were already classified that should not have been sent on an unclassified, private server. That’s the uncomfortable truth that Clinton has trouble admitting.”
Hillary’s campaign spokesperson Brian Fallon responded to the Washington Post’s grade in an interview on MSNBC and attempted to explain Hillary’s statement.
“I think that the question she got yesterday was sort of suggesting that she had misrepresented things to the American people over the last several months,” Fallon said. “And Director Comey’s response was quite clear, that he had no reason to believe anything that she ever said to the Justice Department was at all untruthful, and what she was indicating in that interview to Chris Wallace was what she said to those Justice Department interviewers was entirely consistent with what she has said to the public for the last several months, and the many questions we’ve answered on this issue.”
GOP nominee Donald Trump also weighed in on the news headlines, posting on Twitter a link of an another article picking up on the Washington Post article with a one word comment — #CrookedHillary on the “Four Pinocchios” rating.
2016 Presidential RaceHillary Clinton
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