Obama Slams FBI Over New Hillary Clinton Emails

“We don’t operate on leaks.”


President Barack Obama harshly criticized the FBI’s actions informing Congress about the discovery of new Hillary Clinton emails, suggesting to NowThisNews on Wednesday that the much-criticized letter was outside of law enforcement protocol.

“We don’t operate on innuendo,” Obama said in his first remarks since the FBI’s announcement last Friday. “We don’t operate on incomplete information and we don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.

“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 she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable.”

The president also reiterated his support for Clinton and urged young people not to allow the ongoing email investigation to affect their votes.

“I trust her, I know her,” he said. “I wouldn’t be supporting her if I didn’t have absolute confidence in her integrity and her interest in making sure that young people have a better future.”

The interview comes just one day after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to defend or criticize FBI Director James Comey over the decision. Since the ambiguous letter was released on Friday, the Clinton campaign has accused Comey of improperly interfering with the election, thus benefiting her opponent.

“That announcement has allowed for Donald Trump to take advantage of the absence of facts to wildly speculate and lie about Hillary Clinton,” campaign manager Robby Mook said on Monday.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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