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It was, by any fair measure, a day unlike any other for a major party presidential candidate. In the morning, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in which Donald Trump claimed immunity from criminal prosecution. As the day progressed, the former president’s criminal trial progressed in New York in embarrassing and damaging ways.
As the day came to an end, the Republican decided to wrap things up with a call-in interview to “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax, where the two touched on a variety of topics, including Trump’s alleged reluctance to prosecute Hillary Clinton after the 2016 election.
The conservative host began by crediting Trump for making comments that he never actually uttered. “You said, ‘[The Clintons] are good people. I don’t want to hurt them.’ And I kind of thought that was a very honorable thing to say.”
Trump agreed with the praise of himself. “Well, let me tell you, I didn’t want to [prosecute Clinton],” the former president said. “I thought it would be a terrible thing.”
Trump added that there were “opportunities” to go after the former secretary of state, before concluding, “But I did not want to, and I thought it would be a terrible thing for our country. ... That would have been a horrible thing to do.”
The presumptive GOP nominee, of course, proceeded to contrast his gracious magnanimity with the “radical lunatics” trying to hold him accountable for his alleged felonies.
This has become an oddly familiar claim in Republican circles. In August 2022, for example, after the FBI executed a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida told Fox News that after Trump became president, he made a conscious choice to leave his Democratic opponent alone.
“President Trump took that approach. He said, ’You know what, we’re not going to prosecute Hillary Clinton,’” Waltz said, as if reality had no meaning. The GOP lawmaker added, “[Trump] said, ‘You know what, let’s move on. Let’s move forward.’”
Nearly a year later, Sen. Ron Johnson also went to Fox News to push the same line. “President Ford decided it was best for America not to pursue prosecution against President Nixon. President Trump pretty much made the same decision and decided not to pursue any kind of prosecution of Hillary Clinton,” the Wisconsin Republican claimed. “Joe Biden could have made the exact same decision, but he didn’t.”
To the extent that reality still has any meaning, let’s review the receipts. In Trump’s first year in the White House — after the 2016 election was over and Clinton largely withdrew from public view — the then-president publicly pleaded with the Justice Department to go after Clinton.
A year later, in 2018, the then-president told the White House counsel that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Clinton.
Ahead of Election Day 2020 — nearly four years after Clinton’s defeat — Trump again publicly called for the Democrat’s incarceration and lobbied then-Attorney General Barr to prosecute Clinton for reasons unknown.
None of this was kept secret. It happened out in the open. We all saw it play out in public.
And yet, there was Trump on national television last night, patting himself on the back for showing restraint, saying it would’ve been “terrible” and “horrible” if he’d targeted Clinton after the 2016 election and tried to have her prosecuted.
The problem, of course, is that Trump targeted Clinton after the 2016 election and tried to have her prosecuted. It’s not a matter of opinion; it’s simply what happened, whether the Republican assumes we’ve forgotten or not.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.