Attorney General Michael Mukasey: Email Flap DQs Hillary Clinton-Previously Truth! & Now Resolved!
Summary of eRumor:
Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state was illegal and disqualifies Hillary from being president.
The Truth:
This one started out as true, but Michael Mukasey later said he was wrong to say that Hillary Clinton’s email controversy disqualifies her from running for president.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey originally made the comments on MSBC’S “Morning Joe” in August 2015. And, although it’s been widely reported that Mukasey said Clinton’s use of a private email server disqualifies her, he actually said she would be disqualified for deleting server information, according to an MSNBC clip that can be viewed here:
“I think the more dangerous part of this, from her standpoint, is not so much the placement of the material here as wiping the server. Number one, that’s a felony, but that statute disqualifies you from holding any further office in the United States and she’s running for a further office under the United States.”
Mukasey referred to a statute that makes it a federal crime to file false crop or weather reports and forbids federal employees from falsifying financial records:
(a)Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(b)Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
But Mukasey later backed off the idea that Hillary Clinton should be disqualified for running for president.
Specifically, NBC News reported that Seth Barrett Tillman, a former teacher at Rutgers Law School, argued that applying the statute to presidential candidates would be unconstitutional because “the only limits on qualifications to be president are in the Constitution — having US citizenship, being at least 35, and having lived in the US at least 14 years.”
Seth Barrett Tillman later clarified his position in an email to TruthorFiction.com:
My position is that no federal statute, e.g. Section 2071, can add qualifications to elected federal positions, including the presidency. Those qualifications include: being a natural born U.S. citizen, being 35 years old or older, and 14 years residence in the United States, and also others listed in the Constitution….
Michael Mukasey later recanted his original comments and said he “was wrong” to say that Hillary was disqualified from running for president, MSNBC reports.