President Obama is joining the Democrats who are piling on FBI director James Comey, taking an apparent swipe at the agency head by saying federal investigators shouldn’t “operate on innuendo.”
Obama was asked during an interview with social media outlet NowThis if he is upset about Comey sending a letter to lawmakers last Friday that revealed the FBI is probing newly discovered emails connected to Hillary Clinton’s infamous home-brew server.
Democrats — and the Clinton campaign — are arguing the FBI shouldn’t have released this information so close to the election, considering its potential to influence voting.
“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, we operate based on concrete decisions that are made,” Obama said.
The president said he’s “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. 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.”
Defending Clinton, Obama said of the email investigation: “When this was investigated thoroughly, the last time, the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that, you know, she had made some mistakes, but that there wasn’t anything there that was, you know, prosecutable.”
WATCH:
‘We don’t operate on innuendo’ — President Obama discusses Hillary, emails, and the FBI in an exclusive interview with NowThis pic.twitter.com/0J6tJyEYSh
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 2, 2016
