Trump Says Clinton Attempted to ‘Bribe' AG Loretta Lynch Amid Email Investigation

Donald Trump accused U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch of accepting a "bribe" to get Hillary Clinton "off the hook" for the investigation into her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

Trump, responding to reports that Clinton may keep Lynch on as her attorney general, should she win the presidency in the fall, said, "That’s like a bribe, isn’t it? Isn’t that sort of a bribe? I think it's a bribe."

"So Hillary said today, at least according to what I saw on television, which you can’t always believe. I found it hard to believe she’d said this, but she said today that we may consider the Attorney General to go forward," the presumptive Republican nominee said during a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Tuesday.

Trump said he was not "knocking" the attorney general, but wanted to know why Clinton was permitted to indicate she may retain Lynch, who is overseeing the investigation into her tenure at the State Department, while the probe is ongoing.

"I mean, the attorney general is saying, 'If I get Hillary off the hook, I’m going have four more years or eight more years, but if she loses I’m out of a job,’" Trump said. "It’s a bribe! It’s a disgrace! It’s a disgrace! She is laughing at the stupidity of our system. She is laughing and so is her husband, Bill, laughing at what’s going on."

Earlier Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey said Clinton was "extremely careless" with her handling of classified information but ultimately recommended no charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," he said during a press conference. "We are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case."

This comes two weeks after Lynch held a private 30-minute meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport. At the time, the attorney general told reporters she did not discuss the FBI probe into Clinton's private email server with the former commander in chief.

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