Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Beie Sanders said Sunday that American voters, superdelegates and others must “take a hard look” at the recent federal report that found primary rival Hillary Clinton’s email setup while ruing the State Department broke agency rules.
“It was not a good report for Secretary Clinton. That is something that the American people, Democrats and delegates are going to have to take a hard look at," Sanders told CBS' "Face the Nation," during one of two TV network interviews Sunday.
The inspector general’s report last week concluded Clinton broke agency rules by using a private email server and that she would have been denied permission to have one had she first sought permission.
On Sunday, Sanders, desperately trailing the front-ruing Clinton in the delegate count, continued to not comment directly on the controversy.
But he repeated the notion that superdelegates, of which he needs more in a longshot bid to take the nomination, should indeed scrutinize the report.
“I mean everybody in America is keeping it in mind, and certainly the superdelegates are," Sanders said.
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On Wednesday, the Clinton campaign released this statement: "While political opponents of Hillary Clinton are sure to misrepresent this report for their own partisan purposes, in reality, the Inspector General documents [show] just how consistent her email practices were with those of other Secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email. The report shows that problems with the State Department's electronic recordkeeping systems were longstanding and that there was no precedent of someone in her position having a State Department email account until after the arrival of her successor.
“Contrary to the false theories advanced for some time now, the report notes that her use of personal email was known to officials within the Department during her tenure, and that there is no evidence of any successful breach of the Secretary's server.
“We agree that steps ought to be taken to ensure the govement can better maintain official records, and if she were still at the State Department, Secretary Clinton would embrace and implement any recommendations, including those in this report, to help do that. But as this report makes clear, Hillary's use of personal email was not unique, and she took steps that went much further than others to appropriately preserve and release her records."
In a separate interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sanders said he is focused on “the future of the American middle class and how we deal with the fundamental problems they are facing.”
He also declined to comment on the FBI investigation into the Clinton email scandal, including what impact the findings might have on a Clinton general election bid.
However, Sanders appeared to perhaps take his conces about the emails a step further, suggesting Americans are “tired of those kinds of politics.”
And he made clear presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has and will continue to make an issue of them if and when he faces Clinton directly in the November election.
“Donald Trump and other Republicans will seize on it,” he told NBC. “There’s no doubting that.”