Hillary Clinton's email controversy

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Hillary Clinton's email controversy

State Department officials say the former Secretary of State may have violated federal requirements

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 3, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: "Impact Segment" tonight according to the "New York Times" then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her personal e-mail account to conduct government business, may have violated federal requirements. And it gets worst. The paper reporting Mrs. Clinton did not hand over all her personal e-mails when she left office.

Joining us now from Washington to explain further anchor of "SPECIAL REPORT" Bret Baier. Why should I care about this, Bret?

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: Hey, Bill. A couple of reasons: one, national security. You have a sitting secretary of state using a private e-mail on a non-secure commercial e-mail system that was set up the day that she was sworn in as secretary of state with, we don't know, private, confidential, maybe classified conversations. That's an issue. The "National Journal" said Mrs. Clinton gave Chinese spies a better shot at reading her e-mails than U.S. taxpayers. In today's day and age that's big.

Two, no one at the State Department said anything to her until congress asked for more e-mails 22 months after she left the secretary of state. They said do you have these e-mails? She said sure. She handed over 55,000. We don't know what we don't know. How many e-mails did she not turn over?

O'REILLY: How do we know that she didn't turn over everything as she said? She did or she did the not.

BAIER: We don't know that. We don't know the answer to that how many of them dealt with things that she didn't think needed to be turned over? We don't know. But some of them now are being looked at by the select committee on Benghazi -- 300 e-mails.

O'REILLY: So why did Hillary Clinton set up a private e-mail account when a secure e-mail account was available to her.

BAIER: That is the question.

O'REILLY: So that's another unanswered question.

BAIER: We don't know the answer to that question.

O'REILLY: We don't know if she handed over all the e-mails that she wrote or received as secretary of state. We don't know why -- she could have easily had a government e-mail that was secure, right?

BAIER: But she did not.

O'REILLY: But she did not. We don't know why.

BAIER: In fact, she only used this her entire time as secretary of state, this personal private e-mail. It first came out actually from a hacking.

O'REILLY: And how do we know that, by the way? How do we know that she only used the personal private e-mail?

BAIER: Because that's what they said. They said she never had a government account.

O'REILLY: Who is they?

BAIER: The State Department and her people.

O'REILLY: Ok. The State Department.

So the "New York Times" gets this story you have got to give the paper credit because they like her and they like the Democratic Party. They get this story. Somebody had to leak it from the State Department, you would think, right?

BAIER: Or inside the Clinton team that has a problem. I don't know where it's coming from. But, perhaps up on Capitol Hill where they are finally getting access to some of these e-mails from an account that they didn't know existed.

So the newspaper gets it. It is picked up. The Clinton team immediately puts out that this is a no-brainer. She is cooperating and handing over everything she has. We don't know the answer to that. But we do know this.

O'REILLY: Wait, wait, wait. I want to be clear. So Hillary Clinton's herself is saying I handed over everything, there is nothing I held back. Is that what she's saying?

BAIER: That's what she is saying -- everything dealing with State Department business.

O'REILLY: You know, State Department business, they can overlap on a personal deal, you know. So I don't know. That might be juxtaposing some words here.

Now, the Republicans are going to use this against Hillary Clinton. But, right now, I don't know if the folks are going to care about it. The folks that don't like her will. We know that but the regular distracted people, you think they are going to care about this?

BAIER: Well, they may start paying attention to it. The RNC is out with a new ad about this new controversy. Of course, Republicans are going to hit it hard. What is more interesting though Bill, is the political side in the Democratic Party. There is just angst and worry about this nascent Clinton presidential run that's going to happen.

But after the Clinton Foundation scuff up of foreign governments donating to the Clinton Foundation while she is secretary of state, after the questions now about these e-mails and the transparency that we don't know what we don't know, I think it does fit in to this narrative -- I hate to use that word -- but the narrative that the Clintons are above the law and they think that they can kind of move without recourse.

O'REILLY: Yes. They can do what they want and whether it's ethical or illegal, whatever. They are going to do what they want. I think that's a pretty good theme.

But with Benghazi, you know, it didn't resonate among the folks. Even though it was pretty clear on her watch it wasn't enough security to protect the American ambassador who traveled to Benghazi. That was pretty clear.

It didn't really resonate though. The Democrats didn't care and she's still, you know, fairly popular in the polls.

BAIER: That's true. But I do think that some of the quotes that are coming out today about this story indicate some increasing concern in the Democratic circles. One of them quoted is saying we can't have a coronation when she is handing Republicans an inquisition. Quotes like that raise flags that there may be a challenge to Hillary Clinton that we have yet to see.

O'REILLY: All right. Bret Baier, everybody -- thank you.

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