Newsmax Finance Insider and renowned economist Larry Kudlow said that Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is now “the unsafe candidate” in the wake of a renewed FBI email controversy.
Kudlow, a CNBC senior contributor and informal adviser to the Donald Trump campaign, warned that the scandal could raise "constitutional issues" if Clinton were to win the White House.
"The possibility of a redo on the whole [FBI email] investigation makes [Clinton] the unsafe candidate," he told CNBC.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday announced it had found new emails that might pertain to Clinton's use of a private server for government business while she was Obama's first secretary of state from 2009-13.
FBI Director James Comey said he did not know whether the emails were significant and released no information other than that they existed. His announcement 11 days before the Nov. 8 election drew outrage from Democrats and others who believed it would unfairly influence the vote, Reuters reported.
Little is known yet about the emails, which were found during an unrelated probe into former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
If Clinton were charged, he asked: "Does she pardon herself?"
"This is a criminal investigation," Kudlow said. "She could win. She could be inaugurated. And the investigation is still going to go on," said Kudlow, who under President Ronald Reagan was the associate director for economics and planning, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, where he was engaged in the development of the administration’s economic and budget policy.
Meanwhile, Kudlow said Trump has been climbing in recent polls thanks to a renewed focus on the issues. "[Trump] has been on message for six, seven, eight days, which is the 'eighth wonder of the world,'" Kudlow joked. "He's actually stayed on message" by talking about "draining the swamp in Washington" and getting rid of Obamacare.
"The race is much more fluid than we expected maybe a week or so ago," he admitted. "But the fundamental dynamics have not changed."
However, many economic experts cringe at the thought of a Trump presidency.
"Trump is a wild card, and the markets don't like wild cards. Short-term volatility, at the least, is likely. That's a positive for long-term investors, with the stream of dollars they send into their 401(k)s buying assets at cheaper prices," Bloomberg News explained.
Jittery investors could calm their nerves by putting some money into gold, which the market tends to favor in uncertain times. HSBC Holdings Plc's chief precious metals analyst, James Steel, expects gold to jump by at least 8 percent by year end, regardless of who wins the race.
Larry Kudlow is a senior contributor at CNBC. His new book is “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity,” written with Brian Domitrovic.
To find out more about Larry Kudlow and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).