Hillary Clinton Warned Us — And She's Warning Us Again

Hillary Clinton sat down for an interview with Mother Jones' Ari Berman, and this clip has been released as a teaser. In it, Clinton warns about how appointing a Special Counsel to investigate her would be a dangerous politicization of the Justice Department, from which the nation might not easily recover.

Clinton warned us about Donald Trump, about Putin, about resurgent white nationalism. She was right. She's right again. I hope we have the good sense to listen this time, but I suspect that, once again, we won't.

ARI BERMAN: As you know, [Donald] Trump has tried to flip the script and now says the Justice Department should be investigating you. [laughs]

HILLARY CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

BERMAN: And this week we learned that Attorney General Sessions is considering a special counsel to probe the Uranium One deal and alleged conflicts with Clinton Foundation. What's your reaction to this?

CLINTON: You know, I regret deeply that this appears to be the politicization of the Justice Department and our justice system. This Uranium One story has been debunked countless times — by members of the press; by independent experts. It is nothing but a, you know, false charge that the Trump administration is trying to drum up in order to avoid attention being directed at them.

I mean, even Trey Gowdy — somebody who's hardly a fan of mine — said that, you know, there doesn't seem to be the basis for a special counsel. And of course there isn't.

But if I try to take myself out of it — which, you know, is kinda hard, because it's personally offensive that they would do this — but taking myself out of it: This is such an abuse of power. And it goes right at the rule of law.

As Secretary of State, I went around the world bragging about America's rule of law; that we were a nation of laws, not of men; and, you know, the justice system was blind, and, obviously, you know, we were proud of that, but we always had to be vigilant to make sure that it remained so.

And if they send a signal that we're gonna be like some dictatorship, some authoritarian regime, where political opponents are going to be unfairly, fraudulently investigated, that rips at the fabric of the contract we have, that we can trust our justice system.

And with all of our problems — and you know them and I know them — ultimately we have to stand up for that, and we have to believe that, and we have to fix the problems when they occur and when justice is denied.

But moving into the political realm is something that we've never seen. And it will be incredibly demoralizing to people who have served in the Justice Department, under both Republicans and Democrats, because they know better.

But it will also send a terrible signal to our country and the world that somehow we are giving up on the kind of values that we used to live by and that we used to promote worldwide.

BERMAN: So you have a lot of experience with special counsels. [chuckles]

CLINTON: Yeah.

BERMAN: I mean, how concerned are you about a special counsel investigating you? I mean, is this something that you're preparing for?

CLINTON: I'm not concerned, because I know that there's no basis to it. I regret if, you know, they do it, because it will be such a disastrous step into politicizing the justice system. And, at the end of the day, nothing will come of it, but it will, you know, cause a lot of terrible consequences that we might live with for a really long time.