President-elect Donald Trump will not pursue an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server or her family's foundation, according to a report from MSNBC.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski shared the news Tuesday on "Morning Joe," citing an unidentified source within the campaign. Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway did not deny the report in an appearance on the show, saying the decision "sends a very strong message" to Republicans.
"I think Hillary Clinton still has to face the fact that a majority of Americans don't find her honest or trustworthy," Conway said. "If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that's a good thing to do."
Clinton's use of a private email server was frequently highlighted as she and Trump vied for the White House ahead of Election Day. Clinton served as President Barack Obama's secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
As the Republican presidential nominee, Trump pointed to the private server as an example of Clinton's lack of judgment and vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the situation if he were to win the election. Chants of "Lock her up" were common at Trump rallies.
"If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there has never been so many lies, so much deception," Trump said last month during his final debate with Clinton. "There has never been anything like it."
He later interrupted Clinton to say that if he were president, she would be in jail.
Federal investigators have already conducted an investigation into Clinton's emails. FBI Director James Comey acknowledged in July that Clinton and her staff "were extremely careless" in their use of a private server that was used to send dozens of classified emails, but declined to recommend charges against her. There was no "clear evidence" that Clinton or her staff intended to break the law, Comey said.
The bureau and the Justice Department are in charge of investigating wrongdoing on the federal level and are supposed to do so without worrying about political ramifications. The president gets some say in investigations, according to The New York Times, but only in cases that have global ramifications, such as crimes that carry a national security risk.
"It does seem like an extraordinary breach of protocol for (Trump) to get involved in that decision (to investigate Clinton)," Glen A. Kopp, a former federal prosecutor in New York, told The Times. "I know of no recent circumstances when the president ordered an attorney general not to pursue a criminal matter."
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