United States President-elect Donald Trump has said he would not imprison Hillary Clinton – contrary to a campaign pledge, where he had said he would initiate a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton and send her to “jail”.
During one live presidential debate, Trump warned the former First Lady: “You’d be in jail”.
On the same stage, the billionaire said he would instruct a special attorney to look into the Clinton email scandal.
And Trump’s campaign trails were often peppered with calls by his supporters demanding he “lock her up”.
But in a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump indicated he would not pursue charges against the former secretary of state, saying he “does not want to hurt the Clintons because they have gone through a lot.”
“Well, there was a report that somebody said that I’m not enthused about it (locking Clinton up). Look, I want to move forward, I don’t want to move back. And I don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t.
“She went through a lot. And suffered greatly in many different ways. And I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious. They say it was the most vicious primary and the most vicious campaign. I would imagine. I would imagine. I’m not looking to hurt them. I think they’ve been through a lot. They’ve gone through a lot. I’m really looking … I think we have to get the focus of the country into looking forward,” said Donald Trump.
Trump says he would focus on fulfilling other campaign pledges – but locking Hillary Clinton up is not on the list, saying he “does not feel strongly about it”.
“I feel very strongly about health care. I feel very strongly about an immigration bill that I think even the people in this room can be happy. You know, you’ve been talking about immigration bills for 50 years and nothing’s ever happened.
“I feel very strongly about an immigration bill that’s fair and just and a lot of other things. There are a lot of things I feel strongly about. I’m not looking to look back and go through this. This was a very painful period. This was a very painful election with all of the email things and all of the foundation things and all of the everything that they went through and the whole country went through. This was a very painful period of time.
And doesn’t Trump feel he would have disappointed his followers who were shouting pro-lock Clinton up chants?
“I don’t think they will be disappointed. I think I will explain it, that we have to, in many ways save our country.
“Because our country’s really in bad, big trouble. We have a lot of trouble. A lot of problems. And one of the big problems, I talk about, divisiveness. I think that a lot of people will appreciate … I’m not doing it for that reason. I’m doing it because it’s time to go in a different direction…,” said Trump.
