"... a very loaded word ..."
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On Wednesday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier reported that, based upon his own walk through the maze of dueling viewpoints regarding the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation, an indictment was “likely.”
On Friday, he admitted that although the FBI is not done examining the Clinton Foundation, he had taken his information a massive step too far.
“That just wasn’t inartful, it was a mistake, and for that I’m sorry. I should have said they will continue to build their case,” Baier told host Jon Scott on Fox’s Happening Now.
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“‘Indictment’ obviously is a very loaded word, Jon, especially in this atmosphere, and no one knows if there would or would not be an indictment no matter how strong investigators feel their evidence is,” he said.
Baier, however, was adamant that he was solid in his report that the FBI is investigating the Clinton Foundation. He also noted that procedurally a prosecutor needs to take whatever the FBI amasses and go to a grand jury to seek an indictment.
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With Election Day only days away, the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had attacked Baier’s reporting. Other media sources, including NBC, ABC and CNN, also reported that Baier was wrong.
In discussing any FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation, NBC’s Peter Williams, for example, said flatly, “There really isn’t one. … Few want to call it an investigation.”
However, writing on Town Hall, Guy Benson said that Baier wasn’t entirely wrong.
“A long-simmering grudge match within the halls of the FBI and the Justice Department is spilling into public view via a string of escalating leaks on both sides. Journalists are reporting what their well-connected sources tell them, which is why Williams and Baier can both be correct here,” he wrote.
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He said Baier’s “phrasing” about an indictment “resulted in politically interested parties pretending that his entire scoop has been ‘disproven.’ It has not. A number of its central elements have either been left undisputed, or confirmed by rival news sources.”
Benson then tried to provide some perspective.
“Taking a step back, it appears as though the FBI’s reopened email probe is turning up new and relevant evidence, that some form of FBI inquiry into the Clinton Foundation is open (to one extent or another), and that sharp disagreements exist within the federal law enforcement community about how all of this ought to be resolved,” he wrote.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, unworried about the niceties of language, has been stating what he believes to be a fact.
“ … the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s pay-for-play corruption during her tenure as secretary of state,” Trump said at a Florida rally.
“In other words, the FBI is investigating how Hillary Clinton put the office of secretary of state up for sale in violation of federal law,” he added.
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