Martin O’Malley Calls Hillary Clinton Email Issue a ‘Huge Distraction’.NYT

Standing in front of a hotel emblazoned with Donald J. Trump’s name in Las Vegas, Martin O’Malley on Wednesday said that the constant questions about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email use was a distraction for the entire Democratic Party.

Mr. O’Malley, a former Maryland governor who is challenging Mrs. Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, suggested the party was becoming defined by the email issue.

“I think it is a huge distraction from what we should be talking about as a party,” Mr. O’Malley said, according to a report by CNN.

“We need to start having debates in the Democratic Party,” he said. “And we need to have an exchange of ideas of the things we can do to raise wages, to increase the minimum wage, to pay overtime pay for overtime work, to rebuild our country’s infrastructure.”

“Until we do, our party’s label is going to be the latest news de jour about emails and email servers and what Secretary Clinton knew and when she knew it,” he said. “What I want to know is what our party has to offer our county to make our economy work and wages go up.”

Mr. O’Malley has declined to criticize Mrs. Clinton over her email use, but he has suggested that it is a legitimate issue.

But he said the party was making a “horrible mistake” if the contest was “defined by the latest questions of the day” that “Secretary Clinton and her lawyers can only answer.”

Mr. O’Malley spoke as a number of Democrats are privately expressing concern about the uncertain nature of the continuing F.B.I. inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while at the State Department.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/19/martin-omalley-calls-hillary-clinton-email-issue-a-huge-distraction/