Mika Brzezinski: Hillary Can’t Be Transparent Because She Scrubbed the Server

‘She’ll never be able to answer the questions, that’s the problem’

BRZEZINSKI: "All right. Then we go to this because there are so many unanswered questions surrounding Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server --"

SCARBOROUGH: "That may not be able to be answered and that's why she is not taking the questions."

BRZEZINSKI: "Yes. This is a -- the emails that she used while secretary of state, and yesterday at the first congressional hearing on the matter, the State Department's chiefs freedom of information officer acknowledged it would not be acceptable for employees to keep a government e-mail on a private server."

[clip starts]

BARR: "I think that the actions that we've taken in the course of recovering this -- these e-mails have made it very clear what people's responsibilities are with regard to recordkeeping. I think the message is loud and clear that that is not acceptable."

NN MALE PERSON: "OK. So it is a completely unacceptable process going forward and it should have been retrospective?"

BARR: "Going forward, yes, sir."

[clip ends]

BRZEZINSKI: "Joyce Barr also reluctantly admitted she had no way of knowing how much official email Hillary Clinton had actually turned over."

[clip starts]

BARR: "We have them now, sir."

NN MALE PERSON: "Do you have all of them?"

BARR: "We have the e-mails that she's released to us, all of the official ones."

NN MALE PERSON: "Do you know what percentage that represents of all the e-mails she has on her server?"

BARR: "No, I do not."

NN MALE PERSON: "So you don't have any way of verifying that you have all of the official e-mails that she processed on her personal e-mail account?"

BARR: "We have been told that she has provided by those to us."

NN MALE PERSON: "Who told you that?"

BARR: "The secretary."

NN MALE PERSON: "So you're taking her word for it? I'm sorry?"

BARR: "Yes, sir."

[clip ends]

SCARBOROUGH: "David Ignatius is in a very uncomfortable position."

IGNATIUS: "That's a painful way to start a presidential campaign and then be dealing with the issues like that.  I don't think that she in any way can escape it. The more of those emails that are disclosed, I think more issues are raised. I have friends who worked at the State Department and who are now describing getting emails from that private server from other people, not Secretary Clinton but other people in her inner circle who were also using it. That's another chapter that is coming in this."

SCARBOROUGH: "And who were some of these other people? Who they might be?"

IGNATIUS: "You have to stay tuned on the Washington Post. We will give you those names as soon as we have them." [crosstalk]

SCARBOROUGH: "David, doesn't this get back to the bigger problem being that she now has not only the server question that she does not want to be asked on the campaign trial, because that will become entire story, but now we have all the foreign donations and we are just at the tip of the iceberg for that. When you have $150 million in personal money going there and more than that to these foundations and complex web of relationships between so many countries and her service issues."

IGNATIUS: "Is she's being [indecipherable] by guppies or by piranhas? I still am not sure at this point whether these are deadly issues or whether they are distracting issues. She is strong candidate. She has a strong record as secretary of state and we'll get into a phase of the campaign where we see --"

SCARBOROUGH: "But, David, if they're guppies, don't you turn around and take care of them? Don't you answer those questions if they're guppies?

BRZEZINSKI: "She'll never be able to answer the questions. That's the problem. That's what we talked about yesterday here. She will never be able to be transparent about anything because she scrubbed the server, and I think that's a problem. I feel badly for her that she scrubbed the server if she did nothing wrong."

SCARBOROUGH: "I think that the contributions to the foundation are problem because it just shouldn't have been allowed. And she knew that, when she first came in, when she tried to set up rules for transparency and limits on contributions - but they were too limited. But she knew even as she became secretary that this was a problem area and I think that's why she can't get out of it."

Video files
Full
Compact
Audio files
Full
Compact