The “mainstream media” was accused by former President Bill Clinton of being responsible for his wife Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.
The media’s attention was drawn to Clinton’s controversial use of a private email server for official correspondence during her tenure as State Secretary from 2009 to 2013.
The email saga of Hillary Clinton was the subject of headlines during her time as a Democratic presidential candidate.
It first garnered national attention in March 2015 when The New York Times reported that Clinton’s private email setup at her home “may have violated federal requirements,” which sparked concern among archivists and transparency advocates.
The FBI’s 2016 conclusion that Clinton and her team had been extremely careless with classified information but that no criminal charges were merited was the result of a years-long investigation.
This decision was reaffirmed just days before Election Day. Nevertheless, the controversy loomed over her campaign and served as a flashpoint in a highly polarized election cycle.
During a conversation with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, Bill Clinton criticized all media outlets, including Fox, for elevating the email controversy to the status of the election’s “most significant issue.”
The interview was recorded on Friday and broadcast on MSNBC on Monday.
Scarborough initiated the conversation by reciting an excerpt from Clinton’s most recent memoir, Citizen. Subsequently, Clinton expressed his thoughts on his work:
“It’s easier for us to know what happened in 2016 in some ways than it is what happened in 2024, in terms of all that. Because in 2016, you had two highly unusual things. First of all, the mainstream media told the American people repeatedly that the biggest issue was Hillary’s emails. That’s what they said, not just Fox!” Clinton said.
“When in fact, even the Trump State Department said she neither sent nor received a single solitary email on her personal advice, marked classified, one. And two, she followed the rules as they then existed. The rules were changed after she left office. And yet the whole story was written as if she had done something hideous and then [former FBI director] James Comey made it worse.” he concluded.
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