Thread: Breitbart slams Trump for 'broken promise' on jailing Clinton

Breitbart slams Trump for 'broken promise' on jailing Clinton

Trump's senior adviser said on Tuesday that the president-elect thinks it's time to move on and help Clinton 'heal.'

By LOUIS NELSON and NOLAN D. MCCASKILL
11/22/16 11:25 AM EST
Updated 11/22/16 11:25 AM EST

President-elect Donald Trump is reneging on his promise to jail Hillary Clinton, a sharp departure from the “lock her up!” chants that Trump encouraged at his campaign rallies, immediately drawing the ire of some conservatives.

Breitbart News, the alt-right news organization seen as an arm of the Trump campaign, headlined the lead story on its home page “BROKEN PROMISE.”

Kellyanne Conway, the senior adviser who successfully managed the final iteration of Trump’s campaign, said Tuesday the president-elect will not push for further criminal investigations into potential wrongdoing by Clinton, suggesting he has chosen to “help her heal” from the bruising defeat her campaign never saw coming.

It traditionally would not be seen as the proper role of the president to direct any Justice Department investigations because a firewall has historically been respected between the DOJ and the White House. However, Trump said during the campaign that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Clinton for her use of a private server as secretary of state.

“I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party now, tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content, to the members,” Conway said. “And I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don’t find her to be honest or trustworthy, but if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing.”

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” reported Tuesday morning, citing an anonymous source “with direct knowledge of Donald Trump’s thinking,” that Trump will not pursue criminal investigations against Clinton over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state or of her family’s charitable foundation.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump ally under consideration for a Cabinet position, was among the contingent of supporters who had said Clinton belonged in jail. But on Tuesday he backed off after Conway's statement.

“Look, there’s a tradition in American politics that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you,” he told reporters inside Trump Tower. “And if that’s the decision he reached, that’s perfectly consistent with sort of a historical pattern of things come up, you say a lot of things, even some bad things might happen, and then you can sort of put it behind you in order to unite the nation.”

Either way, Giuliani continued, he would support Trump’s “tough choice.” “You could go either way. If he made the choice to unite the nation, I think, all those people who didn’t vote against him, maybe, could take another look at him,” he said.

Trump last week nominated Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as his attorney general. In an interview late last month with Fox Business Network, Sessions remarked that he was “uncomfortable” with how the FBI’s investigation into Clinton was conducted. The FBI ultimately recommended against charges for her “extremely careless” handling of classified materials.

Sessions said there should have been a grand jury and that the people who were granted immunity should have been “grilled” and forced to “tell us everything under oath,” noting that “people will surprise you how sometimes they’ll just spill the beans when they’re under oath like that.”

He added that there was “sufficient evidence to bring a charge” and argued that Attorney General Loretta Lynch abandoned her responsibility by simply accepting FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation not to pursue charges.

“The FBI director can make a recommendation to her, but she’s the one that decides whether or not to bring a case before a grand jury,” he said. “I didn’t like that.”

Trump’s campaign did not immediately return requests to clarify whether Conway was officially confirming the MSNBC report.


Trump announces executive actions for Day One

By YOUSEF SABA

During the second presidential debate in October, Trump vowed to instruct his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to examine Clinton’s email practices. However, several days after he was elected, Trump told Leslie Stahl during a “60 Minutes” interview that he was “going to think about” whether he would follow through with the special prosecutor. He also said the Clintons are “good people” and that “I don’t want to hurt them.”

“I’m going to think about it,” he said. “I feel that I want to focus on jobs, I want to focus on health care, I want to focus on the border and immigration and doing a really great immigration bill. We want to have a great immigration bill. And I want to focus on — all of these other things that we’ve been talking about.”

Matt Miller, a former spokesman with the Department of Justice, tweeted Tuesday morning that Trump would be violating the Justice Department’s independence if he ordered his attorney general to pursue an investigation.

“If Trump has directed Sessions what investigations to pursue, or not pursue, that is a major violation of DOJ independence from the WH,” Miller stated. “This is a disaster for DOJ's independence.

Imagine if @davidplouffe was announcing things @EricHolder would/wouldn't investigate in 2008.”

Conway said the type of combative language and promises Trump relied on to attack Clinton in his stump speeches are likely in the rearview mirror.

“Look, I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren't among them,” she said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...-conway-231735

Realtime Coverage

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I pray this major departure from one of his biggest campaign promises is not a sign of things to come. Donald Trump's biggest victory in the debates was when Hillary said she was thankful there was not someone in the White House with Trump's temperament and he said "Cause you'd be in jail"

We don't want Hillary Clinton to heal. We want her put in jail for her crimes.

If Donald Trump truly turns back on his campaign promise to appoint an independent prosecutor to look into Hillary Clinton then it means that instead of being a true populist Constitutionalist reformer, he is just an elite playing that role that will pardon other elites just like Obama does.

W

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I actually support Trump's statement on Clinton. This doesn't mean there will be no prosecution or accountability, what it means is he's not going to discolor his Presidency with anything to do with her. If Congress, FBI and DOJ want to investigate and file charges, then that's fine. Trump is sick and tired of dirtying up his Presidency with Clinton and frankly anything DemoQuack. To purge DC of this scum, you have to stop talking about them. To properly investigate criminals, the first thing you do is stop talking about the cases publicly.

Trump isn't an idiot. He's a Manager. You don't let the criminals know what, when or how you're going to do something. Same with illegal aliens. You just do it.

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

. . . If Donald Trump truly turns back on his campaign promise to appoint an independent prosecutor to look into Hillary Clinton then it means that instead of being a true populist Constitutionalist reformer, he is just an elite playing that role that will pardon other elites just like Obama does.

W

Trump flips, now opposes prosecution for Clinton

CNN-6 hours ago
What's more, he said the idea of prosecuting Clinton is "just not .... she has to go to jail," Trump said at a Lakeland, Florida, rally in October.

Conservative backlash over Trump's 'jail Clinton' U-turn
BBC News-2 hours ago

Hillary for Prison Crew Turns on Donald Trump
Opinion-Daily Beast-2 hours ago

Trump drops repeated threat to jail Clinton: 'She went through a lot'
In-Depth-The Guardian-3 hours ago

Kellyanne Conway Concedes: Donald Trump Will Not Lock Hillary Up
Blog-Slate Magazine (blog)-8 hours ago

Trump won't prosecute Clinton, supporters rip 'broken promise'
Opinion-The San Diego Union-Tribune-3 hours ago

Trump has no authority as President to lock her up, to jail her, to prosecute her or even decide to investigate her. Drop this, it's a moot issue. Any prosecutions will be decided by DOJ, FBI, US Attorneys, State Attorney Generals and Congress.

Trump flips, now opposes prosecution for Clinton

By David Wright and Z. Byron Wolf, CNN
Updated 2:40 PM ET, Tue November 22, 2016

(CNN)During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, would join crowds of his supporters in chants of "lock her up!" and said to her face during a debate that if he were president, "you'd be in jail."

But now that he actually will be president, Trump says he won't recommend prosecution of Clinton, who he told New York Times reporters has "suffered greatly."

What's more, he said the idea of prosecuting Clinton is "just not something I feel very strongly about."

The quotes come from the tweets of New York Times reporters Mike Grynbaum and Maggie Haberman, who attended a meeting between the President-elect and reporters and editors at the paper.

Follow
Mike Grynbaum
✔@grynbaum

Trump is pressed if he has definitively ruled out prosecuting Hillary Clinton. “It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about."
10:14 AM - 22 Nov 2016

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Mike Grynbaum
✔@grynbaum

“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways."
10:14 AM - 22 Nov 2016

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"I don't want to hurt the Clintons, I really don't," Trump said, according to the tweets. "She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways."

It's a stunning departure from the campaign rhetoric, which could come as a shock to some of the President-elect's most ardent supporters. The Times characterized one exchange as extending an olive branch to Clinton supporters.

"I think I will explain it that we, in many ways, will save our country," he said.

6h
Maggie Haberman
✔ @maggieNYT

Trump on disappointing his supporters re Clinton: "I don't think they will be disappointed..." 1/2

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Maggie Haberman
✔@maggieNYT

2/2 "I think I will explain it that we in many ways will save our country."
10:16 AM - 22 Nov 2016

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He said the issues have been investigated "ad nauseum" and he added, according to Haberman, that people could argue the Clinton Foundation has done "good work."

Follow
Maggie Haberman
✔@maggieNYT

"My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward.This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum"
10:21 AM - 22 Nov 2016

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The about-face on his formal rival and suggestion that the Trump administration will not pursue further investigations of Clinton related to her private email server or the Clinton Foundation first came Tuesday morning from Trump's former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who said it would send a message to other Republicans.

"I think when the President-elect, who's also the head of your party, tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content" to fellow Republicans, Conway said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

At the second presidential debate in early October, Trump threatened Clinton, saying that "if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation."

Conway said Clinton "still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her to be honest or trustworthy," but added that "if Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing to do."

"Look, I think he's thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them," she added.

Steve Vladeck, CNN legal contributor and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said it was unusual for a President-elect to take such a public position on whether to pursue an investigation.

"Even though the attorney general reports to the president, the Department of Justice is meant to exercise a degree of independence from the White House entirely to avoid the perception that political considerations, rather than legal ones, are behind decisions to (or to not) prosecute," Vladeck said in an email.

"Indeed, we've seen plenty of scandals throughout American history in which presidents have wrongly politicized the Justice Department's role, and President-Elect Trump's comments don't exactly augur well for preservation of the line between law and politics over the next four years."

Despite Trump breaking a campaign promise to some of the most fervent anti-Clinton supporters, Democrats also took issue with the decision as a sign of the President-elect's executive overreach.
"That's not how this works. In our democracy, the President doesn't decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn't," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote on Twitter.

During Trump's ferocious election fight with Clinton, chants of "lock her up" -- referring to Clinton -- became a refrain of the Republican's campaign, as he hammered the Democratic presidential nominee over her decision to use a private email server as secretary of state, and lobbed accusations of corruption and "pay to play" politics at the Clinton Foundation. Trump's choice for national security advisor, Michael Flynn, also led a high-profile chant at the Republican National Convention of "lock her up."

Trump repeatedly brought up jailing Clinton on his own, often at raucous campaign rallies over the summer and into the fall.

"Remember I said I was a counter-puncher? I am," Trump said at a San Jose, California, rally in June, referencing an anti-Trump speech Clinton gave. "After what she said about me today, her phony speech, that was a phony speech. It was a Donald trump hit job. I will say this: Hillary Clinton has to go to jail, OK? (Cheers) She has to go to jail, phony hit job. She's guilty as hell."

"She gets a subpoena, she deleted the emails, she has to go to jail," Trump said at a Lakeland, Florida, rally in October.

But in interviews with the Wall Street Journal and CBS' "60 Minutes" after the election, Trump refused to say if he would fulfill that commitment to appoint a special prosecutor.

"I'm going to think about it," he told "60 Minutes." "I feel I want to focus on jobs. I want to focus on health care, I want to focus on the border and immigration and doing a really great immigration bill.

And I want to focus on -- all of these other things that we've been talking about." He told the program she "did some bad things" but added the Clintons are "good people."

And Trump told the Wall Street Journal that "it's not something I've given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politi...-donald-trump/