Rhetoric: Obama on FBI: ‘We Don’t Operate on Innuendo’

2
>>Follow Matzav On Whatsapp!<<

President Barack Obama briefly addressed the FBI’s reopened investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices for the first time, saying in an interview posted Wednesday that the agency does not “operate on innuendo” and emphasizing that there is no evidence that the Democratic presidential nominee violated the law.

“I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations, we don’t operate on innuendo, and we don’t operate on incomplete information, and we don’t operate on leaks,” Obama said in the interview with NowThis News, which was filmed Tuesday. “We operate based on concrete decisions that are made. When this was investigated thoroughly last time, the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations, was she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable.”

The president’s remarks came several days after FBI Director James B. Comey’s surprise announcement Friday that agents would review thousands of emails potentially connected to Clinton that were discovered as part of a separate inquiry into former congressman Anthony Weiner, D-New York, who is married to a high-ranking Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.

“I’ve made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don’t look like I’m meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes for making these assessments,” Obama said. Of Clinton, he added: “Setting aside the particulars of this case, I know that she is somebody who has always looked out for the interests of America and the American people first.”

Obama had not mentioned the case during recent appearances at Clinton campaign rallies in Florida and Ohio. This week, press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House would neither “defend nor criticize” Comey’s actions. Earnest also referred to the FBI chief as a man of integrity and good character.

But Comey’s disclosure, made in a notice to Congress that leaked to reporters, has prompted strong criticism of the FBI from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers who have questioned whether Comey violated Justice Department policies by making a decision so close to Election Day that risked shaking up a political campaign.

“The president doesn’t believe that [Comey] is secretly strategizing to benefit one candidate or one political party,” Earnest told reporters at the White House on Monday. “He’s in a tough spot, and he’s the one who will be in a position to defend his actions in the face of significant criticism from a variety of legal experts, including individuals who served in senior Department of Justice positions in administrations led by presidents in both parties.”

Aboard Air Force One on Obama’s trip to a Clinton rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday, another White House spokesman insisted that “nothing changed” on the White House view of Comey despite Obama’s remarks in the interview. The president does “take seriously the longstanding norms and customs” that have historically limited what law enforcement can say about a pending investigation, the spokesman, Eric Schultz, said.

“You will see the president went out of his way to say he wasn’t going to comment on any specific investigation,” he added.

Though the race between Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump already had been narrowing, according to public polls, Clinton has lost more of her lead since Comey’s announcement; polls on Wednesday showed the two candidates in a dead heat nationally. A new Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll finds Trump now holds an edge on which candidate is honest and trustworthy, while 59 percent disapproved of Clinton’s handling of her email on a personal server while serving as secretary of state.

In July, Comey said the FBI’s investigation into 30,000 State Department emails that passed through Clinton’s private server found that 110 contained classified information at the time she sent or received them, and a “very small number” included markings as such. He called Clinton and her aides “extremely careless” in their use of email, and suggested that hostile foreign governments could have gained access to them. But he recommended against criminal prosecution, saying there was no evidence that Clinton and her team had intentionally mishandled the information.

Obama’s interview with NowThis was scheduled as part of a final week campaign blitz as the president seeks to help Clinton by boosting Democratic voter turnout among young people and other groups that heavily supported his victories in 2008 and 2012.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · David Nakamura 

{Matzav.com}


2 COMMENTS

  1. Wow, I never realized that Obama was so honest and trustworthy. He is such a straight shooter. He did promise us he would have the most transparent White house in history. He has such an eyein tov and is always dan likav zchus. He won’t accuse anyone of misbehavior unless he is %100 sure that it’s the truth. He always waits until all the facts are in. We are really going to miss him once he leaves.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here