WASHINGTON — Alabama congressman Gary Palmer (R-AL6) on Monday expressed “serious doubts” about the Clinton campaign’s truthfulness regarding the former secretary of state’s health.
During a 9/11 memorial service on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton felt ill and was escorted out of the event by the Secret Service. However, before she could step into her van, her knees buckled and she appeared to faint as she was drug into the van by her security detail.
Hillary Clinton 9/11 NYC pic.twitter.com/q9YnsjTxss
— Zdenek Gazda (@zgazda66) September 11, 2016
After refusing to allow members of her traveling press corp to leave with her, Mrs. Clinton re-emerged hours later, briefly waving to a crowd outside of her daughter’s apartment and saying she felt “great.”
The campaign ultimately claimed she had been diagnosed with pneumonia. Rep. Palmer isn’t so sure.
“I’ve got serious doubts as to whether or not it’s pneumonia,” he said on Birmingham’s Talk 99.5. “But I can’t say. I mean, if it, in my opinion, just my observation, if it were pneumonia, I would’ve thought they would’ve come out and said that very early on. You know, she’s disappeared for a few days and if I’d been her adviser, I would’ve said, ‘You need to get out there and let people know what’s wrong with you, get treatment, get a few days’ rest, get back on your feet.’”
Rep. Palmer also referenced Mrs. Clinton’s recent coughing fits, which he does not believe have been fully explained.
“They’ve tried to attribute the cough to bronchitis, they’ve tried to attribute it to pneumonia, but I sat in the Benghazi hearing for three hours,” Palmer said. “And she sat there and coughed her way through that. You know, again, you just look at the pattern and it just begs the question, are we being lied to again?”
Rep. Palmer said he hopes Mrs. Clinton will make a speedy recover, but continued to express skepticism about her campaign’s transparency.
“We need to separate our political views from the woman’s health,” he said. “I think it’s pretty serious. Whatever it is, it’s pretty serious. I don’t wish her ill. I want her to lose the election obviously, but I think we need to be careful, but I do think there is a tremendous amount of disinformation out there. I think we were being lied to. And in some respects, if lying were a disease, she’d be terminal.”
(h/t Buzzfeed)
