Loretta Lynch meets with Bill Clinton amid email scandal
Photo Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch at the White House in May. Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times
It is well documented that Bill Clinton has a propensity for being social when he sees someone he knows in public. But his decision to walk over to Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch for a chat at the Phoenix airport on Monday spurred a firestorm of Republican criticism.
The meeting was not preplanned, and Ms. Lynch told reporters that nothing sensitive was discussed.
But as attorney general, Ms. Lynch oversees the Justice Department, which oversees the F.B.I., which is looking into the circumstances around Hillary Clintons use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
The reaction to the meeting was so politically fraught that Ms. Lynch is expected on Friday to announce that she will rely on the recommendations of career prosecutors and the F.B.I for the outcome of the email investigation.
The conversation lasted roughly 20 minutes, and Ms. Lynchs husband was present for it. But Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pounced on the news in a radio interview on Thursday.
When you meet for a half-hour and youre talking about your grandchildren and a little about golf, I dont know, it sounds like a long meeting, Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Clinton has a habit of impromptu meetings and phone calls, including one with Mr. Trump before he entered the presidential race, and with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas during the Republican primaries.
Even some Democrats winced, suggesting it created needless questions about appearances. The question of the investigation into the email server has dogged Mrs. Clinton for nearly a year now. It is one of the cudgels that Republicans have used against her, and it has contributed to a decline in the number of voters who view her as honest and trustworthy. A central complaint about Mrs. Clinton in the email controversy has been that she chose not to follow rules that applied to others, and the meeting with Ms. Lynch only enhanced that perception among critics.
Mr. Trump has created a large hole for himself over many months with voters over his comments about Muslims, immigrants and terrorism. But he still has room to fight his way back, something that concerns Democrats. And the uproar over the meeting struck those Democrats as an unforced error.
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