Hillary Clinton’s email controversy [1] continues to haunt her as even her supporters admit the former senator did wrong by using a private server during her four years as Secretary of State.
“I think she made a mistake,” Barney Frank told host Alyona Minkovski on a HuffPost Live [2] segment that aired today. “That was not very intelligent of her.”
Frank, who served as a Democratic congressman for Massachusetts for more than 30 years, was the first openly gay member of Congress. He appeared on HuffPost Live to discuss his recently published memoir, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage.
When asked what he thought of the email scandal, Frank – who knows a thing or two about scandal (from the male brothel operating out of his home in the 80s [3] to fixed parking tickets to helping his boyfriend get a job at an institution he was supposed to be regulating) – said Clinton made the wrong decision although he didn’t think constituents would necessarily care.
“On emails, she made a mistake,” Frank said. “If somebody shows up with some emails that were damaging to her, that will hurt her. Otherwise, I don’t think the public really cares about the ins and outs of whether you use this server or that server if nothing substantive was done wrong."
Later in the interview, the famously partisan and combative Frank slammed Fox News host Bill O’Reilly as a “boor” and “abusive.”
Minkovski asked the former congressman if he was “enjoying” the current controversy surrounding O’Reilly. The TV host was recently accused of lying about or exaggerating his war experiences, similar to the revelations that crumbled the reputation of longtime NBC anchor Brian Williams.
“He’s a right-wing mouthpiece” was Frank’s take on the “O’Reilly Factor” host. “He distorts consistently for the right wing.
“He’s also a bully. I’ve had shouting matches with him … he starts being abusive and inaccurate. Either you fight back and look like as big a boor as he is, or you sit there and let him get away with it.”