Fiorina: Hillary Clinton ‘clearly was paying attention’ to her e-mail server’s setup, Carly Fiorina said Sunday that Hillary Rodham Clinton's paying a specialist to maintain a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state suggests that, contrary to what the Democratic presidential candidate said in a recent TV interview, she "clearly was paying attention" to what was going on with how her e-mails were managed.
Fiorina, whose candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination picked up momentum after a breakout debate performance last month, was asked about Clinton's recent interview with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, in which Clinton said she had not paid close attention to how her e-mail system was set up.
Clinton's use of a private server to handle her State Department and private e-mails has become a major issue in her presidential campaign. On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Clinton and her family personally paid Bryan Pagliano, a former aide in her 2008 presidential campaign who later joined the State Department, to maintain the server. Clinton said she was focused on other issues when she started the job. “There was so much work to be done,” Clinton told Mitchell in the interview, which aired Friday. “We had so many problems around the world. I didn’t really stop and think — what — what kind of e-mail system will there be?”
Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," host John Dickerson asked Fiorina whether she found that explanation plausible.
"I actually don't, because it takes a lot of work to install a private server system in your basement," Fiorina said. "We know, for example, that she hired into the State Department a political operative who had done I.T. work on her campaign and for her PAC, and that that I.T. operative was paid $5,000, not by taxpayers, but by Mrs. Clinton herself, to do I.T. work on that basement server.
"So that actually takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. And so I don't think it's plausible for her to say, 'Oh, I wasn't paying any attention.' She clearly was paying attention."
The Post reported that the Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for “computer services” prior to his joining the State Department, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in April 2009. Pagliano, who left the State Department in 2013, told a congressional committee last week that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination instead of testifying about the setup.
Fiorina, the only woman in the 17-person Republican presidential field, saw a bump in her polling numbers after her participation in last month's debate among second-tier candidates on Fox News last month. That is expected to help her win a spot in the top-tier debate on CNN on Sept. 16, after the network changed its qualifying rules.
Some commentators are looking forward to her challenging Donald Trump, the celebrity businessman who dominated the first debate, despite sometimes offering answers that are at times less than substantive or accurate. Both are touting their status as outsiders with experience as chief executives. In 1999, Fiorina was tapped to run Hewlett-Packard, the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 company. She was fired from the post in 2005, and critics note that, during her tenure, the company's stock fell and that she laid off thousands of employees.
On Sunday, Fiorina declined to directly take a shot at Trump for sometimes seeming not to know or to mix up the names of terrorist organizations and their leaders during an interview last week with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Fiorina, who was interviewed by Hewitt later, handled the questions better.On Sunday, Dickerson asked Fiorina whether she agreed with Trump that CEOs would leave such details to subordinates. "I disagree with him on that," she said. "I think it is very difficult to lead if you don't have the requisite knowledge. And I think it's perfectly acceptable that you don't know the name of every terrorist leader. I don't always either. I do think it's important to know who our enemies are.
"I think it's important to know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and to know as well that both of them, for example, are proxies of Iran. I do think we have come to a place, though, where people realize that running for political office all your life isn't necessarily the most qualifying set of experiences either," she said.
Fiorina went on to tout one of her favorite talking points, that she is a political outsider whose experience in business has prepared her for the job of president.
To which Dickerson asked her, "If you were on the hiring committee, would Donald Trump be fit to be commander in chief?"
"Well, that's not a question for me. That's a question for the voters of this country," she said. "I am most definitely fit to be commander in chief. And that's why I'm running for that office."
Fiorina, whose candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination picked up momentum after a breakout debate performance last month, was asked about Clinton's recent interview with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, in which Clinton said she had not paid close attention to how her e-mail system was set up.
Clinton's use of a private server to handle her State Department and private e-mails has become a major issue in her presidential campaign. On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Clinton and her family personally paid Bryan Pagliano, a former aide in her 2008 presidential campaign who later joined the State Department, to maintain the server. Clinton said she was focused on other issues when she started the job. “There was so much work to be done,” Clinton told Mitchell in the interview, which aired Friday. “We had so many problems around the world. I didn’t really stop and think — what — what kind of e-mail system will there be?”
Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," host John Dickerson asked Fiorina whether she found that explanation plausible.
"I actually don't, because it takes a lot of work to install a private server system in your basement," Fiorina said. "We know, for example, that she hired into the State Department a political operative who had done I.T. work on her campaign and for her PAC, and that that I.T. operative was paid $5,000, not by taxpayers, but by Mrs. Clinton herself, to do I.T. work on that basement server.
"So that actually takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. And so I don't think it's plausible for her to say, 'Oh, I wasn't paying any attention.' She clearly was paying attention."
The Post reported that the Clintons paid Pagliano $5,000 for “computer services” prior to his joining the State Department, according to a financial disclosure form he filed in April 2009. Pagliano, who left the State Department in 2013, told a congressional committee last week that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination instead of testifying about the setup.
Fiorina, the only woman in the 17-person Republican presidential field, saw a bump in her polling numbers after her participation in last month's debate among second-tier candidates on Fox News last month. That is expected to help her win a spot in the top-tier debate on CNN on Sept. 16, after the network changed its qualifying rules.
Some commentators are looking forward to her challenging Donald Trump, the celebrity businessman who dominated the first debate, despite sometimes offering answers that are at times less than substantive or accurate. Both are touting their status as outsiders with experience as chief executives. In 1999, Fiorina was tapped to run Hewlett-Packard, the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 company. She was fired from the post in 2005, and critics note that, during her tenure, the company's stock fell and that she laid off thousands of employees.
On Sunday, Fiorina declined to directly take a shot at Trump for sometimes seeming not to know or to mix up the names of terrorist organizations and their leaders during an interview last week with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Fiorina, who was interviewed by Hewitt later, handled the questions better.On Sunday, Dickerson asked Fiorina whether she agreed with Trump that CEOs would leave such details to subordinates. "I disagree with him on that," she said. "I think it is very difficult to lead if you don't have the requisite knowledge. And I think it's perfectly acceptable that you don't know the name of every terrorist leader. I don't always either. I do think it's important to know who our enemies are.
"I think it's important to know the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah and to know as well that both of them, for example, are proxies of Iran. I do think we have come to a place, though, where people realize that running for political office all your life isn't necessarily the most qualifying set of experiences either," she said.
Fiorina went on to tout one of her favorite talking points, that she is a political outsider whose experience in business has prepared her for the job of president.
To which Dickerson asked her, "If you were on the hiring committee, would Donald Trump be fit to be commander in chief?"
"Well, that's not a question for me. That's a question for the voters of this country," she said. "I am most definitely fit to be commander in chief. And that's why I'm running for that office."
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