Hillary Clinton Saturday declined to disclose what she discussed in her lengthy interview with the FBI on her private email use and said that she learned about her husband's "short chance meeting" with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac in Phoenix through news reports.
"I'm not going to go into any more detail than I already have in public many times … out of respect for the process that the [Justice] Department is conducting," the presumptive Democratic nominee told
NBC News' Chuck Todd in a brief telephone interview. "I'm not going to comment any further on the review.
"I have been answering questions now for over a year. I have released more than 55,000 pages of my e-mails for the public to read for themselves.
"I will continue to be as forthcoming as I can," Clinton said. "My answers that I first gave more than a year ago I stand by."
Clinton was questioned for three-and-a-half hours Saturday morning by the FBI at its Washington headquarters in their probe of her private email use during her four years as secretary of state.
Her campaign has sought to play down the investigation as a distraction. Clinton is expected to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention next month in Philadelphia.
In declining to provide specifics, the former first lady would only say that she agreed with a report in
The New York Times that quoted a source describing the interview as "civil" and "businesslike."
"It was both," Clinton told Todd. "It was something I had offered to do since last August. I have been eager to do it.
"I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion."
She also reiterated her longstanding position that she had no either sent or received classified information on the server that Clinton kept in her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.
"There is a process for the review of material before it is released to the public — and there were decisions made that material should be classified," the former secretary said. "I do call that retroactively classifying.
"So, therefore, it would not be publicly released. That doesn't change the facts, as I have explained many times."
CNN reported sources telling the cable network that the Justice Department was expected to announce within two weeks that Clinton would not be indicted in the investigation "so long as no evidence of wrongdoing emerges from the interview she did today with the FBI."
When asked about the report, Clinton told Todd: "I am not going to comment on the process. I have no knowledge of any timeline.
"This is entirely up to the department."
Regarding the meeting her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had with Lynch on Monday at Sky Harbor International Airport, Hillary Clinton said: "I learned about it on the news. It was a short, chance meeting at an airport tarmac."
"Both of their planes, as I understand it, were landing on the same tarmac at about the same time. The attorney general's husband was there.
"They said hello. They talked about grandkids, which is very much on our mind these days; golf; their mutual friend, former attorney general, Janet Reno.
"It was purely social," Clinton said. "They did not veer off of speaking about those kinds of very common exchanges."
Both the former president and Lynch have come under heavy fire for the meeting, the night before the special House Benghazi Committee released its 800-page report on the 2012 Libyan attacks.
Republicans have widely bashed the half-hour session as Bill Clinton's chance to influence the outcome of the email investigation by the Justice Department, which is directed by Lynch.
Hillary Clinton declined to say whether the meeting was inappropriate — both Lynch and a Bill Clinton aide have said that neither would do so again — only describing it again as "a short, chance meeting."
"They did not discuss the Department of Justice's review," the former first lady said. "I know that some, nonetheless, have viewed the meeting in a different light.
"Both the attorney general and my husband said that they would not do it again.
"The bottom line for me is that I respect the professionalism and integrity of the officials at the Department of Justice handling this process," Clinton said.
"I was pleased to have a chance to sit down and answer their questions today to try to help bring this review to a conclusion."
As for the attacks on her husband and Lynch for the meeting, Clinton said that "I think hindsight is 20/20.
"Both the attorney general and my husband have said they wouldn't do it again — even though it was, from all accounts that I have heard and seen, an exchange of pleasantries.
"Obviously, no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn," she added. "They said they would not do it again."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.