Clinton campaign spokeswoman Karen Finney struggled to defend Hillary Clinton’s contradictory statements on her emails during an appearance on The Lead with Jake Tapper on Monday.
Tapper pointed out that Clinton’s description of the process of who’s gone through the emails was “very different” than what she has said in the past, and proceeded to air clips of the contradictory statements.
He then asked Finney to explain the ever-changing Clinton statements:
Karen, was she involved or not, and can you understand how these mixed messages might be feeding into these trustworthiness issues that she has with voters?
Finney then proceeded to stumble through an explanation as to why Clinton didn’t contradict herself on the email issue:
I actually think it’s consistent because she said we-–as she has explained, her lawyers were involved in that process, and she sort of told them–-I think and made it clear–-I’m sure they were clear about what they were looking for, but I think as she said to Chuck yesterday, she did not want them to feel like she was looking over her shoulder, so in terms of the process–-again, I think they were clear about what they were looking for, so much so, quite frankly, as she also has pointed out, the State Department is returning something like 1,200 emails that apparently, that were turned over thinking they might in some way be business-related, and yet the State Department found, ‘You know what, those are personal, we’re going to send those back to you.’
So I think with regard to the process-–I mean, here’s something, though, to this process, Jake. We know that we’re going to see more releases of emails from the State Department. We know that there may be other questions raised. We know that other Republicans may choose to do something with some of this. But here’s the bottom line. Hillary Clinton has taken responsibility for this. She has apologized. She has turned over her server. And finally, after months of asking for the opportunity to come and speak to Congress, she will be there on the 22nd.
Tapper pointed out to Finney that Clinton was “essentially forced” to turn over her server and that it wasn’t completely voluntary. Hey asked her to explain Clinton’s claim that she carried one device for “convenience,” even though she admitted in an interview earlier this year that she carried an iPad, an iPad Mini, an iPhone and a BlackBerry.
Finney tried to explain that Clinton received the iPad as a Christmas gift and uses it to read news, and that she didn’t have the iPhone when she had the Blackberry.
In other words carrying four devices now isn’t inconvenient, but carrying two devices when she was Secretary of State was.
Finney’s struggles to defend Clinton probably explain why she tweeted this on Sunday after Hillary’s Meet the Press appearance:
Questions on @HillaryClinton's emails on this morning's #MTP? Asked and answered. Time to move on.
— Karen Finney (@finneyk) September 27, 2015
The Clinton campaign desperately wants to move on from the email questions because they have no credible answers, and they know it.
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