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Obama on FBI: ‘We don’t operate on innuendo’

The president has been reluctant to weigh in on FBI Director James Comey's handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton's email practices. Obama briefly addressed the situation for the first time, saying in an interview this week that there was a norm for how investigations are handled.

• By David Nakamura
• 1 hour ago

• After another document release, FBI finds itself caught in a partisan fray
  Post Politics

  Obama on FBI: ‘We don’t operate on innuendo’

  By David Nakamura November 2 at 11:46 AM

  President 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 had 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.”
  

  [After another release of documents, FBI finds itself caught in a partisan fray]

  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-N.Y.), who is married to a high-ranking Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.
  Obama has been reluctant to weigh in on the active FBI investigation over concerns that he would be perceived to be influencing the case. He did not mention 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.
  

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  White House: Obama does not believe FBI director is trying to influence election

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  Speaking to reporters Oct. 31., White House press secretary Josh Earnest said President Obama believes FBI Director James Comey is a man of integrity and is not trying to influence the U.S. presidential election by announcing scrutiny of additional emails linked to Democrat Hillary Clinton's private server. (Reuters)
  “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.”
  Though the race between Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump already had been narrowing, according to public polls, Clinton has more of her lead since Comey's announcement and 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 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 had been 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. The president will speak at a Clinton rally in North Carolina on Wednesday.
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