Nancy Pelosi on Hillary Clinton: ‘This isn’t really about emails’

John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi have different thoughts on the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

For Boehner, the House speaker, it is imperative that Clinton turn over her private email server. Boehner and other Republicans have been pushing for Clinton to make her private email server public after it was revealed she used one instead of a government email account while at the State Department.

By failing to do so, it communicates that the former secretary of state is hiding something — especially when it comes to the 2012 fatal attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“Secretary Clinton must hand over her email server to an independent, third-party arbiter,” the Ohio Republican said at his weekly news conference Thursday. “[Benghazi] Chairman [Trey] Gowdy has already discussed a few examples: A federal inspector general, a retired judge and a professional archivist. All of these choices would be eminently fair and reasonable. We need the secretary to do the right thing here so we can get to the facts about what happened before, during and after an attack on our people.”

However, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sees things differently: the Clinton email scandal is simply a political ploy against Clinton because of her 2016 presidential standing.

“I have a concern that this isn’t really about emails,” Pelosi said at her news conference Thursday.

“It’s about a partisan investigation by a select committee that has spent millions of dollars, produced nothing. “I think we’re going to just see an ongoing investigation of Hillary Clinton,” the Californian Democrat added, “whether it’s her emails, or it’s her hair or whatever it happens to be.”

After revelations of her email use were made public this month, Clinton addressed the issue last week, saying it “would have been better” to use two email accounts.

“I saw it of a matter of convenience,” Clinton told reporters at the United Nations in New York. She has since turned over all work-related emails to the State Department, she said, adding that any other emails sent to government addresses have been automatically preserved.

Clinton has asked the State Department to make those emails public.

As the Clinton email scandal continues to play out, the former secretary of state continues to dominate the polls. As Republicans toy with multiple potential candidates. In a new CNN/ORC poll this week, Clinton holds a 62 percent to 15 percent lead over her closest competitor, Vice President Joe Biden. Despite her favorability taking a hit recently, 68 percent of Democrats still believe she has the strongest chance to hold the White House in 2016, compared to 30 percent who think a different candidate would be a better option.

(h/t Roll Call)