Biden: Clinton didn’t recognize “gravity” of setting up private email server
Vice President Biden defended Hillary Clinton’s decision to use a private email server as secretary of state in an interview Thursday with “Face the Nation” moderator John Dickerson.
Dickerson asked Biden about a lesson from his Grandfather Finnegan: “Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they’ll like what he, the public servant, has to say.”
He asked the vice president, “Do you think that applies to Hillary Clinton’s dealing with this private server that she set up?”
“Well, I think it’s a combination of a couple of things,” Biden replied. “One, I don’t think she understood the gravity of setting it up. She thought it was, ‘This is okay to do.’” Clinton has said she set up her private server for the sake of convenience, but she has since acknowledged that it was a mistake and that she would use the government system if she had to do it over again.
Biden further suggested that Clinton may be a bit battle-scarred from her long time in the public eye, and he said that may have contributed to her initial clumsy response to the email controversy.
“This woman has been so battered over 30 years,” Biden explained. “I think then when faced with, ‘This is a problem,’ I think instead of just cutting it and dealing with it immediately, there’s always an inclination to overthink it.”
The vice president also weighed in on his own future after his time in the Obama administration. “I’m not going away,” he began. “Everything from this issue of violence against women, to income inequality, to the cancer ‘moonshot,’ I’m gonna devote the rest of my life to this.”
“I have been so proud of being involved in public service that I’m not sure exactly how I’m gonna do it,” he added, “other than the structure of [the] American political system.”
When Dickerson asked Biden what he’ll do on his final day in office, the vice president replied, “What I’m going to do is go home and begin to figure out what I do for the rest of my life.”
More of Dickerson’s interview with the vice president will air Sunday. Check your local listings for airtimes.