Jeremy Fugleberg

jfugleberg@enquirer.com

Gary Johnson joined Donald Trump in hanging the "Watergate" label on Hillary Clinton, in an interview before a rally in Cincinnati on Saturday.

The Libertarian Party candidate said the release of hacked Clinton campaign emails by Wikileaks and the recent FBI decision to review newly discovered Clinton emails convinced him the Democratic candidate's term in office would be hamstrung by scandal.

“Does anyone doubt that her entire four years in office is going to be impeachment? It’s going to be impeachment. It’s going to be one special prosecutor after another, and it’s going to be horrible,” he told The Enquirer. “This is really reminiscent of Watergate, only this has got bigger rumblings than Watergate.”

Trump on Friday called the FBI's probe of Clinton emails "bigger than Watergate," a remarkable charge considering the Watergate scandal resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon and 40 government officials indicted and jailed. So far the FBI's investigation into classified emails on a Clinton private email server has resulted in no charges.

The Clinton campaign has demanded FBI Director James Comey release additional information about his decision. Comey's Friday letter to congressional leaders telling them about the additional emails was an "extraordinary letter that was long on innuendo and short on facts," said Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in a conference call with reporters on Saturday.

"There is no evidence of wrongdoing, no charge of wrongdoing, no indication that this is even about Hillary," Podesta said. "In fact, there are reports that the emails they want to look at are duplicates of things they already have and aren’t even from or to Hillary."

New emails under review in Clinton case emerged from Weiner probe

Johnson, in Cincinnati on Saturday, was preparing to speak to a crowd of about 600 awaited his speech at a rally inside a large room in Great American Ball Park as President Bill Clinton stumped for his wife across town.

“Hey, Trump is flawed. Clinton is flawed. There’s an honorable third choice,” Johnson said, previewing his closing argument in his campaign's final days.

Johnson is garnering about 5 percent support in Ohio, according to the Real Clear Politics rolling average of polls. He's averaging about the same in national polls, down from a high of about 9 percent in early September as supporters presumably move to the major party candidates.

If the Libertarian Party gets 5 percent of the national vote, it will be classified a "minor party" by the Federal Election Commission, which means the party's presidential candidates in 2020 will be eligible for matching public funding.