Donald Trump would not say in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday whether he would fire FBI Director James Comey or Attorney General Loretta Lynch over their failure to pursue prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his expected rival for the White House in November.
Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, called Comey's refusal earlier Tuesday to recommend an indictment against Clinton a miscarriage of justice. Comey said that Clinton mishandled classified information in her private email server, but said the actions did not rise to the level of prosecution.
"I don’t want to comment on that," Trump said in an interview scheduled to air on "The O'Reilly Factor." "I really don't want to comment on that because it's inappropriate at this moment. I will tell you that I believe that what happened over the last four or five days has been a total miscarriage in justice and I really believe what happened is shocking and it is certainly shocking to legal scholars and I watch them and talk to them all the time."
Trump's pre-recorded interview was first
reported by The Hill.
Trump suggested that President Barack Obama, who campaigned with Clinton on Tuesday afternoon, might have had a role in the lack of prosecution, even though Comey said in his statement to the press that he was not influenced by anyone.
"It was very strange the timing," Trump told Fox News. "I see him talking, making a speech a couple of hours after this happened."
Lynch has said she would follow the advice of Comey and career prosecutors in her office on whether to pursue charges against Clinton. She made that statement after
furor erupted from Republicans over her meeting with Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, aboard a private plane in Arizona last week.
Trump told Fox he doesn't know whether he would call Comey's recommendation an exoneration "because there were so many bad things said about what she did. She's essentially incompetent, I mean basically they are saying she's incompetent. If she's not dishonest, she's incompetent."