The federal probe into Hillary Clinton's growing email scandal may go well into 2016 — and the former secretary of state's response to it so far has been "disastrous," Edward Klein, bestselling author of
"Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. The Obamas," tells
Newsmax TV.
"I've been speaking to some people in the FBI, of course on background, and what they tell me is the following … this investigation is not going to be over in a matter of weeks, or perhaps even months," Klein told hosts J.D. Hayworth and Miranda Khan on "Newsmax Prime."
"It may take as much as a year. Now that brings us right to the tip of the 2016 presidential election."
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Clinton has come under fire for her use of a private email address and server as secretary of state — and the possibility that top secret materials were exchanged on the unsecured system. Investigators recently seized control f the server and a thumb drive containing 30,000 work-related emails from her lawyer.
Clinton, who has admitted deleting about 30,000 emails she says were personal in nature, joked at an Iowa dinner over the weekend: "You may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account … I love it — those messages disappear all by themselves."
Klein said she shouldn't be clowning around.
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"The handling of this scandal by her and her campaign has been nothing but disastrous and for her to joke about it in Iowa when the FBI is hot on her trail is clearly very counterproductive for her," he said.
"She should be out front in this story and explaining to the American public why she said what she said, which was there were never any confidential or secret documents on her email and why that proved to be not true and what she says about it now.
"But they're not dealing with the story at all. They're trying to make it seem as though it's some vast right-wing conspiracy when in fact it's the Obama administration's Justice Department that's going after her."
Klein said he's unsure whether Clinton will be indicted.
"That's hard to say because the FBI has to present a watertight case and if they do, then it's up to Loretta Lynch, who's the attorney general under [President] Barack Obama, to either bring or not bring an indictment," Klein said.
"From my perspective as I've been saying all along in the books that I've written and the interviews that I've given, the Obamas do not want to see Hillary Clinton succeed Barack Obama in the White House.
"So it's very likely if the FBI can make the case, the Justice Department will in fact come down with an indictment."
Klein said he has been speaking with members of Vice President Joe Biden's inner circle to get a sense of whether he'll be throwing his hat in the ring.
"There are two schools of thought. One is get in now, in September, and the other school, which is a wiser school, is wait until after Iowa and New Hampshire," he said.
"[Sen.] Bernie Sanders is going to rough up Hillary Clinton and make her look even more vulnerable than she does now.
"Then would be an ideal time for the party, the Democratic Party, to come to Joe and say, Joe, you've got to save us, and for him to say, what can I do? I have to get in."
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