Clinton doubles down on disputed claim FBI found her email remarks 'truthful'

Hillary Clinton has doubled down on her assertion that the FBI declared her public remarks on her email scandal “consistent and truthful,” despite independent fact-checkers concluding otherwise.


“And as the FBI said, everything that I’ve said publicly has been consistent and truthful with what I’ve told [the FBI],” Clinton said Wednesday in an interview with Brandon Rittiman of KUSA News.


Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler swiftly chided the Democratic presidential candidate for repeating the "roundly debunked" claim.


Clinton first cited the FBI in her defense last Sunday when “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace noted Director James Comey had contradicted her claim she never sent classified material from her home server.


“That's not what I heard Director Comey say … Director Comey said that my answers were truthful and what I've said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails,” she said.


Several fact-checkers, however, called her out on that claim.


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The Washington Post's Kessler awarded her “four Pinnochios,” and noted, “Comey has repeatedly not taken a stand on her public statements.”


PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating for a lack of truthfulness and FactCheck.org declared her claims “false.”


Comey did tell Congress: “We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI.” But he did not say the same about her public statements.


During testimony before a House committee, Comey said it was “not true” that nothing Clinton sent or received was marked classified. To the contrary, he said, “there was classified material emailed.


Donald Trump also doubled down Thursday on his claim he saw video of Iranians taking $400 million in cash off an airplane on the same day American hostages were released. His campaign earlier said he meant that he saw television coverage of the hostages, not the cash, leaving an airplane.


Afterward, Trump once again clarified, this time via Twitter.


The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!


— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2016


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