President-elect Donald Trump “doesn’t wish to pursue” more investigations into Hillary Clinton’s email practices, a top adviser said Tuesday, strongly signaling to congressional Republicans they should abandon years of probes into the Clintons after a bitter campaign in which he repeatedly branded his Democratic rival as crooked.
The adviser, Kellyanne Conway, spoke of “charges” against Hillary Clinton but referred specifically to Trump sending a message to members of Congress, not the Justice Department. Trump said during the campaign that Clinton would “be in jail” if he were president, but the FBI director has declared on two occasions there is no evidence warranting charges over her use of a private email account.
“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,” Conway said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“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 added, suggesting broader changes from Trump’s political rhetoric.”
On Tuesday, the president-elect heralded “more great meetings” in his Manhattan tower as he continued shaping his administration before heading to Florida for Thanksgiving late in the day.
As for further investigations of Clinton, Trump seemed to waver in a post-election interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Justice Department investigations are historically conducted without the influence or input of the White House.
Asked about investigations in that interview, he said, “I’m going to think about it. 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.”
