Fox News' Bret Baier apologizes for saying Clinton would likely be indicted, claims it 'was a mistake'

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published 4 November 2016

Fox News' Bret Baier issued an apology Friday after reporting earlier this week that FBI sources told him there would "likely" be "an indictment" in the Clinton Foundation and email investigations. "On the hacking of Clinton's private, unsecured server, while multiple sources believe and are operating under the working assumption that the server has been hacked, and some had specific quotes to that belief, there are, to this day, no digital fingerprints of such breaches," Baier clarified Friday.

Baier went on to apologize for the way he had presented the information:

I explained a couple of times yesterday the phrasing of one of my answers to Brit Hume on Wednesday night, saying it was inartful, the way I answered the last question about whether the investigations would continue after the election. And I answered that, yes, our sources said it would. They would continue to likely to an indictment. Well, that just wasn't inartful, it was a mistake, and for that I'm sorry. I should have said, they will continue to build their case. Indictment obviously is a very loaded word, Jon, especially in this atmosphere and no one knows if there would or would not be an indictment no matter how strong investigators feel their evidence is. It is obviously a prosecutor who has to agree to take the case and make that case to a grand jury. We stand by the sourcing on the ongoing active Clinton Foundation investigation, and are working to get sources with knowledge of the details on the record and on camera.

"To be clear, you know, when you're quoting someone, you have to be clear that there is this cut-and-dry determination that you have to have the digital cyber fingerprints to make a complete determination," Baier added. "We should have made that distinction." Watch him issue his apology below. Jeva Lange

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.