Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz on Friday said Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton could face “felony incarceration” for housing sensitive material on her private email server while secretary of State.
The Texas senator said the indictment would all but ruin Clinton’s presidential aspirations, pointing to the example of General David Petraeus, who was prosecuted for improperly handling classified information and could face a retroactive demotion.
{mosads}“If she is indicted, it is difficult to see how she could successfully run for president. Listen, I would put nothing past the gall and audacity of the Clinton tribe,” Cruz said on the “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
“But even the Democratic Party, I would find it hard to believe that they would be eager to nominate someone who is under indictment and could well face felony incarceration.”
Cruz noted that the gravity of the charges would make it tough for Clinton to escape unscathed.
“If she is indicted, we’re not talking about speeding tickets, we’re not talking about taking the mattress tags off of mattresses, we’re talking about serious offenses for which the Obama Justice Department threw the book at General Petraeus,” he added. “And justice needs to be enforced fairly and impartially.”
Cruz, the former solicitor general of Texas, accused the Department of Justice, under the command of President Obama, of politicizing the application of justice.
“If they decide they want rid of her, then she will be indicted, and if they don’t, she won’t,” he said. “And you can appreciate as an alumnus of the Department of Justice how heartbreaking it is that there is an acceptance that the enforcement of criminal justice is decided not by the laws of this country but by some political hack in the West Wing of the White House.”
“It is deeply concerning, and it is yet another indication that under Barack Obama, this Department of Justice has been partisan and political,” he added.
The State Department released 1,000 emails from Clinton’s server Friday. State also revealed that 22 were emails too classified to be made public.