Trump won't push Clinton email investigation

Donald Trump had made Clinton's email scandal a core theme of his presidential campaign.

TRT World and Agencies

President-elect Donald Trump will not push for further investigation against Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, a close adviser said on Tuesday.

Trump had made Clinton's email scandal a core theme of his campaign, leading fired-up supporters in chants of "Lock her Up!"

But since his election he has deflected questioning on the subject, saying in an interview he would think about it, but had other priorities as incoming head of state.

MSNBC, which first reported that Trump would not push for further investigation of Hillary Clinton, said Trump aide Kellyanne Conway confirmed it.

"I think when the president-elect... tells you before he's even inaugurated that he doesn't wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to fellow Republicans," she told MSNBC.

Rudy Giuliani, a vice chairman of Trump's transition team, told reporters a decision not to investigate would be consistent with a US tradition "that after you win an election, you sort of put things behind you".

"And if that's the decision he reached, that's perfectly consistent with sort of a historical pattern of things come up, you say a lot of things, even some bad things might happen, and then you can sort of put it behind you in order to unite the nation," Giuliani said.

"So if he made that decision, I would be supportive of it. I'd also be supportive of continuing the investigation. I think the president-elect had a tough choice there, you could go either way."

During their second presidential debate in October, Trump told Clinton that, if elected, he would instruct his attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into her email practices when secretary of state.

Clinton responded: "It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country."

Trump then quipped: "Because you'd be in jail."

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