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Mayor Garcetti Doubles Down On Support For Clinton After FBI Drops Email Investigation

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com/AP) — Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti reiterated his support for presumed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the wake of the FBI's decision not to prosecute Clinton over her private email setup.

Speaking on KNX 1070's "Ask The Mayor", Garcetti said he still believes Clinton is best positioned to win the general election despite FBI Director James Comey's stinging assessment of Clinton's email practices as secretary of state, in which he rebuked Clinton and her aides for being "extremely careless" in their handling of classified information and contradicted many of the defenses and explanations she's put forward for months.

"She's been the first to admit she made a mistake, she's owned up to that," the mayor said. "But if mistakes were things that disqualified any of us from running for office, look at Donald Trump and Trump University and things that he's said and things that he's done, there's no close contest there."

Garcetti, who served as a superdelegate during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, challenged the notion that Clinton's previous statements about her email setup were less than truthful - a characterization made by none other than Comey himself.

"I think there's a lot of splitting of words...when things are not classified ahead of time but become classified as they get sent from somebody, they're both correct," said Garcetti. "There were things that became classified and things that at the time were not."

"I'm still a very strong supporter of Hillary Clinton," he later added.

The mayor shot down rumors back in June that he was on a short list of potential VP candidates being vetted by the Clinton campaign, stating he remains committed to running for re-election.

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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