Hillary Clinton may have to win the presidency to make her email server problems go away, GOP front-runner Donald Trump said Thursday morning.
"She may very well have to win the presidency, because she may have bigger problems if she doesn't," Trump told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "This whole thing is terrible for our country. What she did as Secretary of State was ridiculous... what she did is totally illegal."
On Wednesday, an examination of
newly released emails from Clinton's private email account showed that Russia-linked hackers tried at least five times to pry into her computer, but it is unclear if she clicked on any attachment and exposed her account.
Security researchers said Clinton received the infected emails, which were disguised as speeding tickets from New York, over four hours early the morning of Aug. 3, 2011.
The emails instructed recipients to print the attached tickets, but opening the attachment would have allowed hackers to take over control of her computer. There was no evidence she opened or downloaded the malicious attachments.
Trump said Thursday that he's been told by "somebody who is a real expert on the subject" that when
Gen. David Petraeus was convicted of sharing classified information to his biographer and mistress, "this was 5 percent of what she did."
"It was nothing by comparison, and they destroyed his life," said Trump. "I mean, you know, they basically gave him a two-year sentence... it's hard to believe that she's even talking about running for president. You wouldn't believe it's possible, frankly, with what she's done, and even the criminality involved, that she could be talking about running for president."
But he doesn't think anything will be done to Clinton as long as Democrats are running the investigation, as "it's pure politics."
However, Trump pointed out, there is a six-year statute of limitations, and he wonders what will happen if a Republican is elected, because if that happens, "you would have somebody that would be, I'm sure, very fair, but they'd look at it fairly, and would that happen?"
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