During the presidential election, Donald Trump said that he intended to make certain that Hillary Clinton would be prosecuted for her email mistakes. The president-elect has now softened his tone— and some supporters aren’t happy.
Trump reportedly told reporters at The New York Times that he doesn’t want to do anything to “hurt the Clintons.”
“She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways,” Trump said.
He later reportedly added that prosecuting Clinton is “just not something that I feel very strongly about.”
The president-elect’s softened stance has surprised many supporters who believed the election as much a victory for Trump as it was a referendum on the Clinton family’s longtime abuse of the political system for personal gain.
Judicial Watch head Tom Fitton, who was instrumental in blowing the top off the Clinton email scandal, warned Trump against continuing “the Obama administration’s politicized spiking of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton.”
“President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals,” he said. “In the meantime, Judicial Watch will vigorously pursue its independent litigation and investigation of the Clinton email, national security, and other corruption scandals.”
Meanwhile, Breitbart exclaimed that the Trump position constituted a “broken promise” to his voters.
Still, it sounds like leaving Clinton alone will be a matter of policy for the next president.
His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, even suggested that Trump is trying to send a message to elected Republicans still working to expose Clinton corruption.
“I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content,” she said.