Conservative pundit Patrick J. Buchanan says Hillary Clinton needs to hire a legal team in the wake of the exploding email scandal enveloping her.
"Hillary Clinton has got a major problem and the Democratic Party has a major headache," Buchanan said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"We have 18 months between now and next November and the Democratic Party is going to be walking through a minefield that entire time. If I were a senior Democrat, I'd be telling [Cice President] Joe Biden to start [getting ready]."
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Buchanan's advice came as the former secretary of state and leading Democratic presidential candidate agreed to turn over her private email server to the FBI, which is said to be conducting a criminal inquiry, according to reports. At least four emails from the server are said to have contained classified information.
"How many more of the documents that she had on her private server contain that kind of information? She's going to first have to lawyer up," Buchanan said to Steve Malzberg.
"And secondly if it's proven that she really has misspoken very possibly deliberately misspoke, you're talking about her potential problem with the Department of Justice and a possible indictment down the road."
Clinton's campaign has called the scandal much ado about nothing and blames Republicans with trying to damage her.
Asked if he believes the Justice Department, under a Democratic administration, can conduct a fair investigation, Buchanan, a senior adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, said:
"You can be confident something might be leaked. I'm sure there are people over there if you come across explosive material and a bureaucracy that people can leak it out. I mean that's what [happened in] Watergate, after all — leaks … out of the Watergate grand jury.
"If there's more and more top secret or secret documents that they find on these documents on her private server, it's a hellacious political problem for her.
"She's already lost dramatically in terms of support, her credibility and trustworthiness is upside down in the polls. This is a real headache for the Democratic Party."
In an e-mail to supporters Wednesday, Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri tried to offer reassurance that the hoopla is little more than a Republican plot to damage to the Democratic front-runner.
“This kind of nonsense comes with the territory of running for president. We know it, Hillary knows it, and we expect it to continue from now until Election Day,” Palmieri said.
Buchanan is author of
"The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority," published by Crown Forum.
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