No matter what anyone calls the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, its focus isn't on the Democratic front-runner herself, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz insisted Friday morning.
"I think it's important to underscore Secretary Clinton isn't the target of this inquiry, investigation, or whatever 'i' word you want to use," the Florida lawmaker told Fox News' Bill Hemmer on the
"America's Newsroom" program, in response to a question about FBI Director James Comey rejecting Clinton's assertion that the probe is a "security inquiry," rather than an "investigation."
Wasserman
Schultz didn't have a definitive reason for not thinking Clinton was the focus of the FBI's investigation, however.
"I have repeatedly been told that," she told Hemmer. "My understanding is that Secretary Clinton is not the target of this investigation or whatever you want to call it."
"Did the FBI share that with you?" Hemmer asked her.
"I'm only repeating what my understanding is," she replied, turning the question around to comment on the election and telling Hemmer that voters will "make sure they have a president who has our backs and won't take people's healthcare away now that 20 million people have it who didn't have it before.
"And won't take us back to a time when another president plunged our economy into the economy since the Great Depression."
Hemmer, though, didn't let up, asking her again if Clinton is taking the FBI probe seriously, yes or no, and again, Wasserman Schultz sidestepped the question.
"When you release 55,000 pages of emails and demonstrate the transparencies she has throughout this 'I' word, most definitely," she said. "That's still not what the voters will be making this decision on when they decide who they are voting for president."
Also on the program, Wasserman Schultz denied that pressure is not high for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the Democratic presidential race.
"We have a primary nominating contest," she told Hemmer. "I think there [are] a dozen primaries left. It will play out and Sen. Sanders says he will remain in the race to give everybody an opportunity to cast a vote, and each candidate has to make their own decision."
Clinton herself stayed in the 2008 race until the voting ended, said Wasserman Schultz.
Meanwhile, the committee is working with state parties, and when there is a presumptive nominee, "we'll focus on unifying and make sure we can ramp up and get ready for our convention so we can launch our nominee."