US attorney general Loretta Lynch said that her "social" meeting with former president Bill Clinton had "cast a shadow" over the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she served as US secretary of state.
Responding to criticism of her meeting Mr Clinton aboard her plane while they were at a Phoenix airport in Arizona on Monday, Ms Lynch said she would accept the recommendations of federal investigators and prosecutors on whether charges should be brought against Mrs Clinton, but she declined to recuse herself from the case.
"I certainly wouldn't do it again because it has cast this shadow over what it should not, over what it will not touch," Ms Lynch told a conference in Aspen, Colorado.
“It’s important to make it clear that that meeting with [former] president Clinton does not have a bearing on how this matter will be reviewed and resolved.”
The attorney general described the encounter between herself, her husband and Mr Clinton on the parked plane at Sky Harbour International Airport as a “social meeting” where they talked about their grandchildren and golf.
Republicans including the party's presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and some Democrats have criticised Ms Lynch for having the 30-minute meeting with Mr Clinton, arguing that it raises questions around the integrity of the investigation into his wife's handling of classified information during her use of a private email server at their home in Chappaqua, New York, while she led the state department.
Mr Trump, Mrs Clinton’s rival in November’s presidential election, has cited the “sneak” meeting as evidence of “the rigged system” and her “bad” judgment.
“I think it’s so terrible, I think it’s so horrible. I think it’s the biggest story one of the biggest stories of this week, of this month, of this year,” the billionaire New York businessman told a conservative talk-show host.
The second-highest ranking Republican in the US senator, John Cornyn, has called for a special counsel to take over the running of the investigation.
“This incident does nothing to instil confidence in the American people that her department can fully and fairly conduct this investigation,” he said.
Democratic senator Chris Coons of Delaware said he did not think the meeting "sends the right signal," while David Axelrod, a former chief strategist to president Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter that he did not believe Ms Lynch and Mr Clinton discussed the investigation but that it was "foolish to create such optics".
