Washington – US President Barack Obama Wednesday made his first comments on the FBI decision to tell Congress about the discovery of emails that could be related to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
“I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations, we don’t operate on innuendo. We don’t operate on incomplete information. We don’t operate on leaks,” Obama said in an interview with NowThis News.
The FBI prompted a political firestorm Friday when it said investigators had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state.
Obama stressed that earlier investigations by the FBI, Justice Department and Congress concluded that “she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable.”
Obama did not mention FBI Director James Comey by name. However another top Democrat responding to Comey’s move said in an interview Wednesday with CNN she believed Comey had “made a mistake” by informing Congress about the emails.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said he “couldn’t take the heat” from Republicans when the emails were discovered in a separate investigation into former US congressman Anthony Weiner, the husband of close Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Weiner is under investigation for allegedly sending explicit images to an underage girl.
Clinton also has questioned the FBI’s decision to announce the move just days ahead of November 8 election.
In July, following a nearly year-long investigation, Comey said Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information but had not broken the law, and the Justice Department declined to bring charges.
– (dpa)
