Donald Trump wants to help Hillary Clinton “heal” and will not pursue a probe of her private email server, according to a senior adviser to the president-elect.
Kellyanne Conway said Mr Trump is setting a tone for congressional Republicans by refraining from calling for more investigations, adding: “He doesn’t wish to pursue these charges.”
Days earlier, he had said he wanted to think about whether to look more into Ms Clinton’s emails and the Justice Department’s decision to not recommend charges against her.
But Ms Conway said on Tuesday: “If Donald Trump can help her heal, then perhaps that’s a good thing.”
During the campaign he had vowed to put his Democratic presidential rival in jail over the matter.
The change in stance came as Mr Trump abruptly cancelled a meeting with The New York Times, accusing the organisation of changing the conditions for the session “at the last moment”.
The newspaper denied the charge and said his aides had tried to change the rules. He had been scheduled to meet Times reporters, editors and columnists and did not give details of his complaint, saying in a morning tweet only that “the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice”.
Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
After again hitting out at “the crooked media”, he said in another tweet: “Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!”
Eileen M Murphy, the newspaper’s senior vice president for communications, said: “We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to.”
She said Mr Trump’s aides tried to alter the conditions, asking for a private meeting only, with nothing on the record, “which we refused to agree to”.
“In the end,” she said, “we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.” That was followed by Mr Trump pulling out.
He held private meetings with representatives of the television networks on Monday.
Earlier, he confirmed he will take the US out of a key trade pact as he defended his worldwide business interests.
The US president-elect released a short video about his plans for his administration, which included the intention to quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
“I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a potential disaster for our country,” Mr Trump said. “Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back on to American shores.”
Mr Trump said in the video he was assembling a cabinet made up of “patriots” and that his agenda “will be based on a simple core principle – putting America first”. He repeated a number of promises for the first 100 days of his administration, including vows to negotiate new trade deals, remove regulations on businesses and establish a five-year ban on executive officials becoming lobbyists.
Notably missing from his promises was his pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his vow to build a southern border wall with Mexico.
The president-elect later appeared to deny using the powers of his future office to benefit his businesses worldwide.
He tweeted: “Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!”
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