Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s potential rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination are steering clear of her email scandal, refusing to criticize or defend her as they wait to see if the furor is strong enough to knock the front-runner out of the race.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is eyeing a presidential run, said Wednesday that he was too busy to watch Mrs. Clinton’s press conference a day earlier, in which she addressed the scandal, and therefore didn’t have an opinion about it.
“I didn’t watch it because I was working,” Mr. O’Malley said when questioned by reporters at an event at the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank in Washington.
He repeatedly dodged questions about Mrs. Clinton’s possibly illegal use of private email for official communications as America’s top diplomat, which has jolted Mrs. Clinton’s nascent quest for the Democratic nomination.
“I respect your interest in this issue,” Mr. O’Malley told a reporter when asked whether he was satisfied with Mrs. Clinton’s explanation for her actions and whether he believed, as Republican lawmakers have argued, that an independent party should examine the email server stored in Mrs. Clinton’s home to verify what she deleted.
“I don’t know,” the former governor said. “I’ll leave that to you to figure out.”
Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group, an independent polling and consulting firm in Washington, said Mr. O’Malley is playing it smart.
“If she decides to not run, someone like Martin O’Malley would want to be well positioned as a fallback,” said Mr. Valliere. “The key for long shots like him is to not look like a vulture, waiting to pounce if Hillary is staggered. He just needs to keep connecting with the base, and who knows what might happen?”
Mr. O’Malley isn’t the only Democratic hopeful to give Mrs. Clinton a wide berth.
Former Sen. Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat who has formed an exploratory committee for a White House run, said Tuesday that Mrs. Clinton’s press conference would be “a good time for the air to be cleared.” But after the press conference, he remained mum.
His spokesman did not respond to questions Wednesday.
Also refusing to answer questions about Mrs. Clinton’s email woes was Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent and self-described socialist who is considering a run for the Democratic nomination.
SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton deleted 32,000 ‘private’ emails, refuses to turn over server
The scrutiny of Mrs. Clinton has intensified following the revelation last week that she exclusively used a personal email account for her four years as secretary of state, which could violate federal record-keeping laws.
Mrs. Clinton’s office said that of 62,320 emails stored on a server in her home, they identified 30,490 as official and turned them over to the State Department. The remaining 31,830 were deemed personal and deleted.
The emails and questions about what Mrs. Clinton deleted have become a key issue in Congress’ probe of the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, where U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.
The attack occurred during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at State, and her role in the U.S. response to the attack also will be an issue for her on the campaign trail.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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