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Donald Trump Drops Threat of New Hillary Clinton Investigation Donald Trump Drops Threat of New Hillary Clinton Investigation
(about 5 hours later)
President-elect Donald J. Trump repeatedly called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary,” and many of his fans chanted over and over again at his campaign rallies: “Lock her up!” President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that he had no intention of pressing for an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server or the financial operations of her family’s foundation, dropping the “lock her up” pledge that became a rallying cry for his campaign for the White House.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Trump essentially said never mind, signaling that he has no intention of directing investigations into his former rival’s use of a private email server or the financial operations at the Clinton family’s global foundation. Mr. Trump, who branded his rival “Crooked Hillary” and said she would go to jail if he were president, said in an interview with reporters and editors at The New York Times that he was no longer interested in pursuing Mrs. Clinton, in part because he wanted to heal the wounds of a divisive campaign.
“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,’’ Mr. Trump said during a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.” “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” Mr. Trump said during the interview. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.”
It was the latest evidence that the president-elect is willing to retreat from strong positions expressed in the most strident tones during his campaign for the White House, and a particularly striking turnabout on an issue that dogged Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which she blames for her loss to Mr. Trump. His reversal on prosecuting Mrs. Clinton was particularly striking given the outsize role the issue played during the presidential campaign, in which her use of a private email server as secretary of state became a prominent theme, and one she has blamed for her loss to Mr. Trump.
Instead, Mr. Trump said he wanted to “move forward” after the divisive campaign. While he said that “we’ll have people that do things,” perhaps a reference to the F.B.I. or others who might call for an investigation, the president-elect made clear he would not seek to pursue an investigation himself nor make it a priority when he assumes office. Mr. Trump said he wanted to “move forward” from the subject. While he said that “we’ll have people that do things,” perhaps a reference to the F.B.I. or Republicans who might continue to press for prosecutions in the email or foundation cases, the president-elect made clear that he would not seek to pursue an investigation himself nor make it a priority after he assumes office.
“It’s not something that I feel very strongly about,” Mr. Trump said, unlike health care or immigration. “This has been a very painful period of time.” “It’s not something that I feel very strongly about,” Mr. Trump said at The Times, unlike health care or immigration. “This has been a very painful period of time.”
The decision may help Mr. Trump focus on his agenda once he moves into the Oval Office in January, without the potential distraction of an unprecedented legal inquiry by a president against his rival. The decision angered some of his most fervent supporters, who immediately criticized his seeming change of heart.
But it could deeply disappoint many of the voters whose anger against Mrs. Clinton he helped stoke throughout a bitter campaign. During their second debate, Mr. Trump turned to Mrs. Clinton and vowed, “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there’s never been so many lies, so much deception.” “Broken Promise,” blared the headline on Breitbart News, a conservative news site that has strongly backed Mr. Trump.
A White House directive to close an F.B.I. criminal investigation would be highly unusual. The bureau and the Justice Department are supposed to conduct investigations free from political influence. There are instances when the White House does have a say in investigations, but they generally involve national security matters such as the arrest and capture of terrorism suspects overseas or the indictment of Chinese hackers. Those are decisions that could have global ramifications. During their second debate, Mr. Trump turned to Mrs. Clinton and vowed, “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there’s never been so many lies, so much deception.”
“It does seem like an extraordinary breach of protocol for him to get involved in that decision,” said Glen A. Kopp, a former federal prosecutor in New York. “I know of no recent circumstances when the president ordered an attorney general not to pursue a criminal matter.” After Mr. Trump’s turnaround on Tuesday, the conservative commentator Ann Coulter, one of his staunchest supporters during the campaign, suggested in a Twitter post that Mr. Trump was overstepping his role.
The new president’s decision is likely to frustrate investigators at the F.B.I., who are fiercely protective of their independence to follow the facts that they uncover. A declaration from Mr. Trump that he wanted inquiries about Mrs. Clinton to stop could be seen as unwarranted presidential meddling into an investigation. “Whoa! I thought we elected @realDonaldTrump president,” she wrote. “Did we make him the FBI, & DOJ? His job is to pick those guys, not do their jobs.”
Although the email investigation is closed, the F.B.I. still has an open inquiry into the Clinton Foundation. That inquiry began after the 2015 publication of the book “Clinton Cash,” which asserted that some foreign entities gave money to the foundation in return for State Department favors when Mrs. Clinton was in office. The Clintons have denied those assertions. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group that has been a relentless critic of Mrs. Clinton, said on Tuesday that it would be a mistake for Mr. Trump to drop the threat of appointing a special counsel to look into her email use.
If, as president, Mr. Trump ordered the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to close the inquiry, Mr. Comey could choose to rebuff him. To insulate F.B.I. directors from political pressure, they are given a 10-year term. The president can fire a director for cause, as President Bill Clinton did in 1993 after a Department of Justice investigation uncovered ethical abuses by the F.B.I. director William S. Sessions. Mr. Fitton said that although the F.B.I. had already investigated the matter twice, that inquiry was flawed. His group has gained access to thousands of pages of Mrs. Clinton’s State Department emails through lawsuits and is pressing its case in court even after her defeat.
Word of Mr. Trump’s intentions regarding Mrs. Clinton came as the president-elect began another day of interviewing potential cabinet officials. In an early-morning post on Twitter, Mr. Trump said that “great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run our government for the next 8 years,” apparently assuming he will serve two terms. Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said last week on Fox News that his committee would continue to investigate the matter as well because “we’ve got to get to the truth.” Mr. Chaffetz’s office said Tuesday he was unavailable for comment about Mr. Trump’s statements.
People close to the transition said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who had been a leading candidate to be secretary of state, is now in the running to become the country’s director of national intelligence. That position would put him in charge of coordinating the various military and civilian intelligence-gathering operations. Although the F.B.I.’s email investigation is closed, the agency still has an open inquiry into the Clinton Foundation. That inquiry began after the 2015 publication of “Clinton Cash,” a book by Peter Schweizer that asserted that some foreign entities had given money to the foundation in return for State Department favors when Mrs. Clinton was there. The Clintons have denied the assertions.
The F.B.I. and Justice Department conduct their criminal investigations largely independently from the White House, so Mr. Trump cannot tell agents to close their cases. A president ordering the F.B.I. to stop a politically sensitive case would be a major scandal.
“It does seem like an extraordinary breach of protocol for him to get involved in that decision,” Glen A. Kopp, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said of the president-elect. “I know of no recent circumstances when the president ordered an attorney general not to pursue a criminal matter.”
If, as president, Mr. Trump were to order the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to close the foundation inquiry, Mr. Comey could choose to rebuff him. F.B.I. directors are given 10-year terms to insulate them from political pressure, but the president still has the power to fire a director, as President Bill Clinton did with William S. Sessions in 1993 after a Justice Department investigation uncovered ethical abuses by Mr. Sessions.
In an interview last week with CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” Mr. Trump said he had not yet decided whether to dismiss Mr. Comey over his handling of the Clinton email investigation, saying the director “may have had very good reasons for doing what he did.”
As a practical matter, though, Mr. Trump’s remarks will probably have little impact. The investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails is already closed and, while the one into her family’s foundation remains open, senior F.B.I. officials and career Justice Department officials have said there is little evidence justifying moving forward with a case. When the case comes up for review, senior agents and prosecutors may decide to shut it down, but it will not be because of Mr. Trump’s remarks.
While the president-elect’s decision is likely to frustrate investigators at the F.B.I., who are fiercely protective of their independence to follow the facts they uncover, some legal experts applauded Mr. Trump’s decision to not pursue investigations into Mrs. Clinton’s emails or her family foundation.
Rory K. Little, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said he was inclined to support both moves by Mr. Trump. A decision to shut down an investigation, he said, “is not out of step with constitutional constraints,” as the Constitution gives the president the power to issue pardons for federal crimes.