Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN‘s Michael Smerconish on Saturday morning that the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) new filing against former President Donald Trump is “completely different” than ex-FBI Director James Comey‘s 2016 probe into her emails when she was serving under the Obama administration.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s federal election interference case, partly unsealed DOJ’s special counsel Jack Smith‘s lengthy filing aimed at convincing Chutkan that the former president’s alleged offenses in the wake of the 2020 election are private, rather than official acts of office, and can therefore remain in his indictment.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, faces four felony counts in Smith’s case against him in Washington, D.C., after he allegedly tried to overturn President Joe Biden‘s 2020 election victory in the aftermath of his loss, which culminated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claims the case is politically motivated.
Smith’s filing came almost one month away from November’s presidential election, in which the former president will face off against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
In October 2016, 11 days before the presidential election between Trump and Clinton, Comey, who was the director of the FBI at the time, sent a letter to Congress announcing the reopening of an investigation into Clinton’s emails when she was President Barack Obama‘s secretary of state.
Clinton ended up losing to Trump in 2016 and has said that she thinks Comey’s announcement so close to the election killed her chances of winning. Comey announced in July 2016 that he would not recommend criminal charges in connection with Clinton’s use of a personal email system to conduct business as secretary of state, but then reopened the case months later. Comey announced two days after that year’s election that the investigation was again complete with no evidence to change the decision not to charge Clinton.
Comey was hired as FBI director under Obama and was fired by Trump in May 2017, which the administration attributed to Comey’s handling of the Clinton email probe.
Appearing on CNN’s Smerconish on Saturday morning, Clinton was asked, “I’m wondering if you see any problem with the DOJ filing this 165-page detailed memo that lays out their full case against Donald Trump just a month before this election.”
“I think the situation is completely different,” Clinton told Smerconish, comparing it to Comey’s announcement of the email probe in October 2016. “This is in the context of an ongoing criminal procedure that the special counsel has brought against Donald Trump many, many months before the run-up to the election.”
She continued: “In many ways, it was frankly motivated by the orders of the judge in this trial who has, it appears to me, been extremely favorable toward Trump in the rulings over the course of the month…There’s nothing out of the ordinary. There’s no violation of Department of Justice laws and regulations, as I understand them, in filing a further explanation of the charges in an ongoing case.”
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communication director, told Newsweek via email late Saturday morning, “Crooked Hillary still can’t get over being a sore loser from 2016 and now has let Trump Derangement Syndrome completely take over her life to the point she’s appearing on low-rated cable news shows and begging Kamala for a job. It’s sad.”
Newsweek reached out to Clinton’s team via email for comment late Saturday morning.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen on September 23 in New York City. Clinton told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday morning that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) new filing against former President Donald Trump is “completely different” than ex-FBI Director James Comey’s 2016 probe into her emails when she was serving under the Obama administration.
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative
Meanwhile, Trump called Smith’s immunity filing “falsehood-ridden” in a post on his social media site, Truth Social, on Wednesday and seemed to allege that the release coincided with Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate between his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.
“The release of this falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional, J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous Debate performance, and 33 days before the Most Important Election in the History of our Country, is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and Weaponize American Democracy, and INTERFERE IN THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION,” Trump posted.
Trump’s D.C. trial will not begin until after November’s election as pre-trial proceedings continue. On Thursday, Chutkan gave Trump until November 7, two days after the election, to file his response to Smith’s new filing.
The reason that Smith filed his 165-page brief in the first place goes back to a U.S. Supreme Court decision on July 1 that former presidents have immunity for official acts conducted while in office but not for unofficial acts. The case was brought to the high court in a push from Trump to have the case thrown out. Smith, meanwhile, updated Trump’s original indictment, and a grand jury reindicted the former president last month.
The superseding indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump, but the former president is still charged with the same four counts from the original indictment filed in August 2023: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
