MASON, Ohio — An Ohio crowd reacted strongly as Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence brought up breaking news out of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a senior state department official attempted to use favors to convince FBI officials to change the classification of an email being reviewed in the Bureau’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.
Pence mentioned the scandals surrounding the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s private email server and destruction of devices used to send and receive information over that server, and spoke of pay-to-play politics revealed in the emails of John Podesta, now Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman, released to the public by Wikileaks.
“It’s not like it’s a fair fight out there, everybody,” said Pence. “From my very first day on this campaign it’s obvious it’s been 2-on-1 with the national media doing half of Hillary Clinton’s work for her,” Pence said of what has been seen as unfair media coverage of Clinton’s campaign.
“Watch the national media chase after every unsubstantiated attack on my running mate [Donald Trump], the media continues to ignore an avalanche, an avalanche of documented email evidence complicit, political favoritism, pay-to-play politics from Hillary Clinton during her years as Secretary of State,” Pence continued, then moved to speak of the new revelations out of the FBI on Monday.
“The FBI confirmed today that the State Department and senior State Department officials offered a quid pro quo to the FBI to cover up classified documents that were on Hillary Clinton’s email server,” Pence told the crowd of around 700, who reacted with boos.
He continued:
According to documents released by the FBI today, one of Hillary Clinton’s top, top aides, Undersecretary of State contacted the FBI to ask the FBI to change the classified status of emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server in exchange for a quid pro quo.”
Men and women, let me just say right now, in the Buckeye State, if only for her years of pay-to-play politics, corruption and coverups, Hillary Clinton must never be allowed to serve as President of the United States.
Pence’s words drew resounding cheers and whistles from the crowd and individual shouts of “prison,” “lock her up” and “treason.”
News broke of the quid pro quo offer from Patrick Kennedy, Undersecretary of State for the State Department, to the FBI on Monday. According to the FBI documentation just released, Kennedy attempted to entice FBI officials to declassify certain Clinton emails in exchange for allowing the FBI to place agents in more countries where they were currently “forbidden.”
“In the midst of this avalanche of evidence of corruption and political favoritism and the willful ignorance of the national media, it’s actually easy to lose sight in this election, but the choice that we face in this country, is not just about the misdeeds…but it’s about the big things.”
Pence referenced former President Ronald Reagan as he said this is a decision between up and down, not between left and right.
In the latest CNN/ORC poll released Monday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leads Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by four points in Ohio among likely voters.
Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana
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