After Controversial Meeting With Bill Clinton, Loretta Lynch Will Follow Prosecutors’ Recommendations

Following a private meeting with Bill Clinton, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she will follow the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, a Justice Department official said on July 1.
After Controversial Meeting With Bill Clinton, Loretta Lynch Will Follow Prosecutors’ Recommendations
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 9: U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch looks on after announcing federal action related to North Carolina, at the U.S. Department of Justice, May 9, 2016, in Washington, DC. Led by Governor Pat McCrory, North Carolina officials sued the U.S. Justice Department on Monday for challenging the state's law on public restroom access. Last week, the Justice Department stated that North Carolina violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by prohibiting people from using public restrooms that do not match the gender listed on their birth certificates. Governor McCrory, a Republican, has called the Justice Department's stance on the issue 'baseless and blatant overreach.' (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
7/1/2016
Updated:
7/1/2016

Following a private meeting with Bill Clinton, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she will follow the recommendations of career prosecutors and the FBI on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, she said on CBSN in Colorado on July 1.

“This case will be resolved by the team that has been working on it from the beginning. ... ”Up to and including the FBI director,” Lynch said.

“I fully expect to accept their recommendations.”

The declaration comes after a controversial impromptu private meeting that Lynch had with former President Bill Clinton aboard her plane on the tarmac at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on Monday.

Lynch said she wouldn’t have such a meeting again, but said “that meeting with Bill Clinton will have no bearing” on the outcome of the investigation. 

“I had already determined that that would be the process,” she said.

The encounter, which comes at a time when the Justice Department is investigating whether sensitive information was mishandled through Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, was lambasted by Republicans and Democrats.

But Lynch then told reporters that the meeting was not planned and that it happened when Bill Clinton was waiting to take off on another plane. She said Clinton walked over and boarded her plane after she landed there.

Lynch said Bill Clinton and her did not discuss the current investigation during their meeting, and that they talked about his grandchildren and he told her he had been playing golf in Arizona. They also discussed former Attorney General Janet Reno, whom they both know.