CBS host Charlie Rose may have slipped Thursday when he referred to the private meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton as "two politicians saying hello."
Clinton and Lynch met this week in Phoenix on Lynch’s private plane, and they claimed their discussion did not touch on the ongoing FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton and her private email server.
"Let’s first talk about Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president, and a meeting with Loretta Lynch, which seems on the face of it simply to be an innocent meeting of two politicians saying hello," Rose said on CBS This Morning. "But."
"Just not smart, right? Not a smart thing to do," guest panelist John Heilemann said. "She’s still being investigated by the FBI. The Justice Department has jurisdiction over that case. Former President Clinton, who usually has a really good fingertip feel for politics and for perception ... Just going and having the conversation, it just does him and his wife no good, so what’s the point?"
Lynch is the nation’s top law enforcement officer and has insisted there would be no partisan conflict of interest with the investigation into Clinton’s wife Hillary, the former secretary of state, over her server and potential mishandling of classified information.
President Obama has also endorsed Hillary Clinton for the presidency, but Lynch told Fox News Sunday that the Department of Justice would follow the facts of the case like any other investigation.
Referring to Lynch as a "politician" could put a dent in her effort to appear as an objective arbiter. Lynch is a member of the Democratic Party.