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2nd LD Writethru: U.S. attorney general pledges to follow FBI's advice on Hillary email inquiry

Xinhua, July 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Friday she "fully" expected herself to accept recommendation by FBI investigators on whether to bring charges related to Hillary Clinton's personal email setup. However, Lynch refused to recuse herself from the case.

The remarks came as disclosure of a private meeting early this week between former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Lynch had provoked bipartisan disapproval and concerns about a potential conflict of interests while Mrs. Clinton was still under federal investigation.

The 30-minute private meeting happened on Monday night at the Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, and was described by Lynch as primarily social.

According to ABC News who first disclosed the meeting, Mr. Clinton waited for Lynch's arrival after being notified that Lynch would be arriving at the same airport. Mr. Clinton approached Lynch and initiated the unplanned chat.

Speaking at Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, Lynch on Friday indicated her regrets about not having turned down the former president, admitting that the episode "cast this shadow" on the independence of the ongoing investigation into Mrs. Clinton's personal email setup during her stint as U.S. secretary of state.

"I certainly wouldn't do it again," said Lynch. "It's important to make it clear that that meeting with President Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved."

At a press conference in March, 2015, Clinton acknowledged that she had exchanged about 60,000 emails from her private email account during her stint in the Obama administration, among which about half were personal and thus deleted.

In response to requests from the State Department, the Clinton camp turned over the other half, roughly 30,000 emails in total, to the State Department in December 2014.

The controversy surrounding Clinton's email practices again burst into public view in August, 2015 after the inspector general for the U.S. intelligence community revealed that two of the thousands of emails held by Clinton contained top-secret information.

Currently, federal investigators were probing into whether Clinton had mishandled classified information, and the investigation was expected to be wrapped up anytime in the near future. Endit