Clinton Surrogate Sherrod Brown Says Indictment Over Emails is Unlikely
Brown, however, called Bill Clinton's meeting with Lynch "unfortunate."
— -- Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said Sunday that he thinks it's unlikely that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be indicted over her use of a private email server to conduct official business.
"I'm not worried about it," Brown said. “I think that there won’t be an indictment, and I think that means she did what many secretaries of state have done in the past,” he added, referring to Clinton's use of a nongovernment email address, although she is the only secretary of state to have built and used a personal email server functioning out of her home.
In defending Clinton, Brown mainly sought to go on offense against Clinton’s presumptive general election opponent Donald Trump.
“I think what this story is missing is all we don’t know about Donald Trump,” Brown told ABC’s Martha Raddatz on “This Week.” He went on to refer to what he said was Clinton’s strong record of public disclosure on things like her tax returns and health care records and compared that to Trump’s.
“That’s a contrast we need to make,” he said.
Brown did, however, call it “unfortunate” that Clinton’s husband Bill last week met on an airport tarmac with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who will ultimately be required to act upon the recommendations of the FBI once it concludes its investigation into Clinton’s email practices.
“I wish it hadn’t happened,” Brown said of the meeting.
The Ohio senator also threaded a needle between Clinton’s advocating for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal while serving in the Obama administration and her opposition to the trade pact now, saying part of her job was to publicly promote the president’s policies.
“When she was secretary of state, her boss was advocating a trade policy," he said. "It was her boss.”
Brown refused to say whether he’s been contacted by the Clinton campaign about being vetted as a possible vice presidential candidate.
“I’m simply not going to speculate on that. I love the job that I get to do,” he said.
When pressed by Raddatz, he continued, “You’ve heard my answer, that’s what you’re going to get.”