--- title: Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor on Hillary Clinton description: Donald Trump called for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, saying the FBI and Department of Justice aren't impartial canonical: https://time.com/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-22T23:39:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:08:13.402Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Hillary Clinton og:description: "Immediately" og:url: https://time.com/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt30bfd464b67c688b/6988a338fb4eac0c4188ed39/donald-trump-staff-social-posts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Hillary Clinton twitter:description: "Immediately" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt30bfd464b67c688b/6988a338fb4eac0c4188ed39/donald-trump-staff-social-posts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Hillary Clinton > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 22, 2016 11:39 PM UTC  Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addresses a campaign event at Fredericksburg Expo Center August 20, 2016, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addresses a campaign event at Fredericksburg Expo Center August 20, 2016, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Molly Riley—AFP/Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 22, 2016 11:39 PM UTC Donald Trump called for a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, saying the FBI and Department of Justice can’t be trusted to be impartial. “The amounts involved, the favors done and the significant numbers of times it was done require an expedited investigation by a special prosecutor immediately, immediately, immediately,” Trump said in Akron, Ohio, of the State Department under Clinton, adding the “immediately’s” to his prepared remarks. “After the FBI and Department of Justice whitewash of the Clinton email crimes, they certainly cannot be trusted to quickly or impartially investigate Hillary Clinton’s new crimes, which happen all the time.” Under current U.S. law, independent counsel can be appointed when the Attorney General determines that an investigation by the Department of Justice “would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances” and “that under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint and outside Special Counsel.” Loretta Lynch, the current U.S. Attorney General, [came under fire in June](http://time.com/4389433/bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-email-attorney-general-loretta-lynch/?iid=sr-link2) for meeting privately with former President Bill Clinton while the FBI and Justice Department were investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server. At the time, Lynch said they did not discuss the email issue. Trump referenced this meeting in his speech Monday, citing it as an example of the Department of Justice acting “unethically.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Hillary Clinton","datePublished":"2016-08-22T23:39:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:08:13.402Z","description":"\"Immediately\"","url":"https://time.com/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt30bfd464b67c688b/6988a338fb4eac0c4188ed39/donald-trump-staff-social-posts.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/blt30bfd464b67c688b/6988a338fb4eac0c4188ed39/donald-trump-staff-social-posts.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP","caption":"US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP","creditText":"Molly Riley—AFP/Getty Images","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/4462315/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor/","name":"Donald Trump Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate Hillary Clinton"}}]}] ```