Clinton ‘very damaged’ by email scandal: Trump

Billionaire republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump took aim at Democratic <g data-gr-id="18">front runner</g> Hillary Clinton on Sunday, contending she could be “very damaged” by an email scandal swirling around the former secretary of state.

And amid reports that Vice President Joe Biden was actively exploring a run, Trump claimed that if Clinton could “get over” the controversy both would be equally tough <g data-gr-id="19">challengers</g>. “I think they’re the same. I think that Hillary may be very damaged, however ... because of the email thing,” Trump told ABC’s ‘This Week’ talk show. “You look at General Petraeus, what’s happened to him, how he’s been destroyed. And what he did was a fraction of what she’s done,” he added.

“But I don’t know, assuming she could get over that, which I just don’t know how she possibly can, but if assuming she could, I would say it would be pretty equal.” 

Clinton has been dogged on the campaign trail by her use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state.

She has agreed to turn over her private server to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but has insisted that she “never sent or received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.” 

Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus – credited by some with changing the course of the Iraq war –was given two years’ probation and fined $100,000 for providing classified secrets to his mistress. He resigned in November 2012.