--- title: Donald Trump Accuses Clinton of Bribery in Email Probe description: Trump slammed Clinton and Obama's campaign appearance and railed against the FBI's recommendation not to bring criminal charges against her canonical: https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-06T00:47:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:03:52.734Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Accuses Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation og:description: Trump also had words of praise for Saddam Hussein og:url: https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f2da84955226960/69889ac3196cf4117403c4ac/donald-trump-raleigh.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: donald-trump-raleigh og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Accuses Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation twitter:description: Trump also had words of praise for Saddam Hussein twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f2da84955226960/69889ac3196cf4117403c4ac/donald-trump-raleigh.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 6, 2016 12:47 AM UTC  Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during an appearance in Raleigh, N.C., on July 5, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during an appearance in Raleigh, N.C., on July 5, 2016Gerry Broome—AP  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 6, 2016 12:47 AM UTC Taking the stage in North Carolina just hours after [Hillary Clinton and President Obama](http://time.com/4394191/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-rally-transcript/?xid=homepage) left the state, Donald Trump slammed [the duo’s joint campaign appearance](http://time.com/4393676/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-north-carolina-rally/?xid=homepage) and accused Clinton of bribing Attorney General Loretta Lynch for favorable treatment in her email investigation. “It’s a bribe,” Trump said of Clinton [reportedly being open to keeping Lynch on as Attorney General](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/us/politics/hillary-clinton-president.html?%5Fr=1). “I mean the Attorney General is sitting there saying, ‘If I get Hillary off the hook, I’m going to have four more years or eight more years. But if she loses, I’m out of a job.’ It’s a bribe. It’s a disgrace.” Lynch [said Friday](http://time.com/4390961/loretta-lynch-hillary-clinton-fbi-email-probe/?iid=sr-link1) that she would accept the FBI and prosecutors’ recommendation on charges related to the investigation of Clinton’s private email server. On Tuesday, FBI director James Comey recommended that there be [no criminal charges against Clinton](http://time.com/4393271/james-comey-fbi-hillary-clinton-email/?xid=homepage), despite finding her conduct to be “extremely careless.” Trump also accused Obama of being in on the conspiracy. “He’s campaigning and this was set up a long time ago, and he knew that the FBI was going to do this because it would have been very uncomfortable for him to campaign with her actually if they didn’t take a pass on crooked Hillary,” Trump said. “So they take a pass, they announce they’re not going to press charges, lo and behold, a few hours later, let’s have a press conference, let’s do a speech together.” [Multiple](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-comey.html?%5Fr=0) [outlets](http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/fbi-recommends-no-criminal-charges-against-hillary-clinton-n603926) reported that the White House had no advance warning on the FBI’s decision. Trump called on voters to see Clinton’s email controversy as evidence of poor decisionmaking. “Stupidity is not a reason that you’re going to be innocent, and I don’t happen to believe it was stupidity,” Trump said. “Look at her judgment on emails,” he continued. “Who would do it? Look at her judgment. Her judgment is horrible.” He said Clinton “put the entire country in danger.” Trump spent most of his speech railing against the former Secretary of State and the President, tying them together in his pitch to voters for change. “The last thing we need is an Obama-Clinton in the White House,” he said. On terrorism, Trump also seemed to praise former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. “Saddam Hussein was a bad guy,” Trump said. “But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He didn’t read them the rights.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation","datePublished":"2016-07-06T00:47:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:03:52.734Z","description":"Trump also had words of praise for Saddam Hussein","url":"https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f2da84955226960/69889ac3196cf4117403c4ac/donald-trump-raleigh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f2da84955226960/69889ac3196cf4117403c4ac/donald-trump-raleigh.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"donald-trump-raleigh","caption":"Donald Trump during an appearance in Raleigh, N.C., on July 5, 2016.","creditText":"Gerry Broome—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4394225/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bribery-email-investigation/","name":"Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton of Bribery in Email Investigation"}}]}] ```