Before Hillary Clinton was slated to give a speech bashing the Senate GOP for its blockade of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley used her email controversy to preemptively dismiss the criticisms in an interview with Politico.
“With all the troubles she’s getting on email, and the FBI’s going to question her, I would imagine she’d want to change the tone of her campaign,” Grassley told Politico.
Grassley appeared to be referring to a report by the Los Angeles Times that federal officials, who are investigating whether classified information was mishandled on a private email server Clinton used as secretary of state, have begun contacting Clinton aides in order to conduct interviews.
According to previews of Clinton’s speech, scheduled for Monday afternoon at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the former Secretary of State and ex-Senator plans to call out Grassley in particular while attacking Republicans’ refusal to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
The Senate Judiciary Committee traditionally hosts hearings for Supreme Court nominations. Grassley and the other Republicans on the committee signed a letter vowing not to hold any hearings on Obama’s nominee because, they argued, the confirmation of a successor to late Justice Antonin Scalia should wait until after the next president is elected.
The White House and its allies have taken some Republicans’ wobbling on that hard line as a sign that cracks in the blockade are growing. Grassley held firm in his interview with Politico, however.
“I want to spend my time on doing things we’re going to accomplish and you know ahead of time that this isn’t going to be approved,” Grassley said. “So spend your time on things that …we can do in a bipartisan way instead of in a partisan way.”
