Back in October President Obama was asked during an interview with 60 Minutes about Democrat presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ongoing email scandal. Many in the FBI were outraged over his response.
Federal agents were still cataloging the classified information from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal email server last week when President Obama went on television and played down the matter.
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said it had been a mistake for Mrs. Clinton to use a private email account when she was secretary of state, but his conclusion was unmistakable: “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.”
Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Mrs. Clinton’s email setup did in fact put any of the nation’s secrets at risk, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
Investigators have not reached any conclusions about whether the information on the server was compromised or whether to recommend charges, according to the law enforcement officials. But to investigators, it sounded as if Mr. Obama had already decided the answers to their questions and cleared anyone involved of wrongdoing.
Over the weekend, Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace asked the question again. Obama answered by first claiming he had to be careful about commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation and then proceeded to comment about how a) Clinton was an "outstanding" Secretary of State b) that she didn't jeopardize national security through use of a private server c) she was simply "careless" rather than intentional in her efforts to set up and use a private email server to conduct all of her government business. After his answer, the Obama White House maintained the President doesn't speak to the FBI or Department of Justice directly about ongoing investigations.
Recommended
Obama "neither sought nor received" any briefings on Hillary email situation, his comments based on public reporting, @PressSec says
— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) April 11, 2016
Obama also emphasized the importance of what the definition of is, is.
"There's classified and then there's classified," Obama said in defense of Clinton. "There's top secret and then there's really top secret."
As a refresher, Clinton did in fact store, send and receive the most top secret of classified information on her private server and put human sources in grave danger by doing so. Not to mention that dozens of her closest aides at the State Department also sent and received top secret, classified information on private email accounts and servers.
The White House is willing to admit President Obama did in fact exchange emails with Clinton while she was using a private account, but maintains Obama was unaware her emails were being hosted on a private, unsecured server.
Earnest: Obama was aware of Hillary's private email *address* but not her private email *server.* Um, okay...
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) April 11, 2016
So which one is it? 1) Obama is discussing the case with DOJ and FBI, making it political or 2) is openly opining and putting his finger on the political scale in the public forum while the FBI continues it's criminal investigation. One thing is At this point, it's becoming more clear President Obama is attempting to influence, or even obstruct, this investigation in one way or another.
I'll leave you with this:
Just spoke to a retired JAG colonel. She says she prosecuted and jailed people for much less than what HRC did. @hughhewitt @20committee
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) April 10, 2016
Join the conversation as a VIP Member