President Trump told Newsmax he still holds the option to pursue criminal cases against Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while saying he has so far held back.
Speaking Thursday with Newsmax host Rob Finnerty, President Donald Trump said he possesses “a lot of information” about the former officials and has not used it. He framed the choice in plain terms: he could still move on them, or he could leave them alone.
Yenişafak reported the exchange as Trump revisited old fights with the Clinton and Obama years and made clear the option remains open.
Trump put the claim in his own words first.
Trump told Finnerty:
"I could have done numbers on Hillary Clinton, I could have done numbers on Bill Clinton, I do like Bill Clinton,"
He then widened the list.
Trump continued:
"I could have done numbers on Barack Hussein Obama, still could, I still could. I could do big numbers if I wanted to. I turned down going after Hillary Clinton."
When Finnerty pressed him on what “big numbers” meant, Trump answered that he could either “go after them criminally” or “destroy their reputations.” He offered no exhibits, dockets, or named witnesses in the interview. The claim rested on his word that the information exists and that he has chosen not to deploy it.
Trump also signaled he is unlikely to move on the former presidents and the former secretary of state right now. Coverage cited in the same report said he pointed to the chance of fresh impeachment proceedings if he did. That is a political calculation, not a claim that the files are empty.
For conservative readers who watched years of lawfare aimed at Trump, the remark lands as a reminder: restraint has been one-sided in Washington for a long time. Trump is saying he can still choose a different path.
His public record with Hillary Clinton has never been quiet, from campaign-era clashes to later court fights, including when Trump took a lawsuit against her to the Supreme Court.
While Trump says he has held fire on the Clintons and Obama, the Justice Department has not sat still on other targets tied to past fights with him.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously won a civil fraud case against Trump, now faces federal charges brought by the Justice Department. Former FBI Director James Comey has been hit with two indictments; a judge dismissed the first after ruling the prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed. Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and Fed Governor Lisa Cook have all drawn administration investigations, according to the same reporting.
The Supreme Court blocked Trump’s attempt to remove Cook from office. A federal grand jury also rejected an effort to indict six Democratic lawmakers over a video urging military personnel to disobey illegal orders. Separate from that slate, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty in June to charges of illegally retaining sensitive documents.
Those matters are distinct from any uncharged theories about the Clintons or Obama. They show an administration willing to use the Justice Department against critics and former officials when cases are actually filed, and they show courts and grand juries still checking that power.
Hillary Clinton remains a live political figure in her own right, whether ranking her 2016 defeat with national traumas for discouraged Democrats in recent comments or drawing fresh criticism over past remarks, as when she faced heat for calling a Fort Hood shooter’s public execution “barbaric”.
Trump’s Newsmax appearance did not name statutes, name cooperating witnesses, or describe what “a lot of information” contains. He said he “turned down going after Hillary Clinton” before and that he “still could” move on Obama. The gap between capability and action is the story he chose to tell.
That posture tracks a broader pattern in how he talks about old rivals. He keeps the threat visible. He also keeps the decision in his own hands. Related coverage has already tracked the same theme when Trump said he still could pursue the Clintons and Obama to wreck their names.
Democrats who spent years cheering investigations of Trump now face a president who says the reverse option exists and that he has declined to pull the trigger. The political cost he cited, another impeachment fight, is real under a hostile Congress. So is the double standard voters saw when process was treated as destiny only in one direction.
Clinton-world commentary keeps feeding that contrast. She has called the Democrats’ leftward shift a “healthy experiment,” a line that drew sharp pushback on the right after Hillary Clinton described the party’s leftward lurch in those terms.
She has also revisited 2016 in ways that still rankle, including when she ranked that loss alongside 9/11 and the 2008 crash for discouraged Democrats.
None of that converts Trump’s interview lines into filed charges. It does explain why his warning resonates with readers who want equal rules, not selective memory.
Trump said he could still act. He also said he has not. In a capital that spent years treating “norms” as a one-way street, that choice is the point.
Equal justice means the powerful face the same risks they once cheered for their opponents, and presidents who hold back still get to say the option remains on the table.