Senior Trump adviser stuns CNN anchor with comment about 'waterboarding' Hillary Clinton

Screenshot/CNN

A senior adviser to Donald Trump's campaign told CNN's Kate Bolduan that Hillary Clinton wouldn't tell the truth "if you waterboarded her," leaving the anchor seemingly stunned.

"What?" Bolduan said.

"You couldn't get the truth out of her with a waterboard," he repeated.

"And you brought in waterboarding," Bolduan responded.

Trump has suggested that the military return to the practice of waterboarding, which has been banned, even suggesting he'd potentially go further to gather intelligence.

"I'd go further. I'd listen to the military people, but I'd go further," Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, said during a CNN interview the day of the Brussels terror attacks in March. "And by the way, torture works." He has, at various points during the campaign, backed slightly away from those positions.

Bennett's comments on CNN came after Bolduan asked if a remark Trump made during his San Jose, California, rally Thursday night was a "real threat." Trump had suggested his theoretical administration's attorney general would take a "very good look" into Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.

Bolduan asked if the Department of Justice "finds that there was nothing illegal that happened, should Donald Trump still have his AG in a Donald Trump administration investigate her?" she asked.

"I'm more interested in the FBI," said Bennett, who once served as ex-presidential hopeful Ben Carson's campaign manager. "But if the DOJ tries to stop the FBI, then yes."

The State Department's inspector general released a report on Clinton's use of a private email account last Wednesday, saying she "did not comply" with department policies.

The report cited "longstanding, systemic weaknesses" related to communications that preceded Clinton's appointment as secretary of state. But the inspector general's report singled out Clinton's failures as more serious.

"At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department's policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act," the report said.

Watch the back-and-forth here >