Despite a lack of evidence, Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) on Friday insisted that Hillary Clinton was facing indictment because “she’s hearing about it.”
Ellmers, a Donald Trump surrogate and the first congressional candidate endorsed by the Republican nominee, was interviewed about FBI investigations into Clinton’s private email server and the Clinton Foundation on CNN’s “New Day.”
“She is under—facing indictment,” Ellmers told host Chris Cuomo. “We’re in a situation where the Clinton Foundation—”
“No proof she’s facing indictment,” Cuomo replied.
“There is proof,” she insisted.
“There isn’t any proof,” Cuomo pushed back.
“There is.”
“What’s the proof?” he asked.
“The proof is the FBI investigators,” Ellmers said. “This is coming out everywhere. I’m hearing about it. I don’t really have all that many connections and yet I’m hearing about the investigation.”
A widely-circulated Fox News report that Trump himself pushed on the stump cited two anonymous “sources with intimate knowledge” into the Clinton Foundation probe who said Clinton would “likely” be indicted. Fox later walked the report back, noting that a prosecutor must decide whether to bring an indictment against a potential defendant.
When Cuomo pointed that out, Ellmers remained defiant.
“You know what, people are talking,” she said. “So, the investigation is moving forward. Now, I do agree with you, there is someone who is trying to put a cover up in place here. And it’s at the Justice Department level. That’s where it is.”
“That’s a conspiracy theory and that’s fine for you to believe it. But you said she’s facing indictment,” Cuomo said, adding that that implies “you know something that the FBI is about to do.”
“We have no basis of proof that that is about to happen. You may want it to happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” he went on.
Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, also made the case that the important part of the false indictment story was that “voters are hearing it.”
Ellmers lost her reelection bid in North Carolina’s Republican primary this June.
