President Obama emphatically vowed in an interview Sunday that his administration would not “in any way” protect Hillary Clinton over the course of the FBI investigation into the former secretary of state’s use of a private email server.
“I can guarantee that,” Obama said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” — his first ever as president on the program — after host Chris Wallace asked if he could pledge that Clinton “will not be in any way protected.”
“And not because I give Attorney General (Loretta) Lynch a directive; that is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line, and always have maintained it,” Obama added. “I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case.”
“Full stop. Period,” he added, when asked whether that position could change even if Clinton secured the Democratic presidential nomination. “Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department. Because nobody is above the law.”
Clinton is currently the subject of an FBI investigation over her use of a private email server for official emails during her tenure at the State Department. The inspector generals for the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken.
President Obama said in an interview on Sunday that his administration will not protect Hillary Clinton ‘in any way’ in the FBI probe into her use of a private email server.
Obama went on to say that he believes Clinton did not put U.S. national security at risk by using her private email server, but should have been more careful.
“I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America’s national security. Now what I’ve also said is that — and she has acknowledged — that there’s a carelessness, in terms of managing e-mails, that she has owned, and she recognizes,” Obama said. “But I also think it is important to keep this in perspective. This is somebody who has served her country for four years as secretary of state, and did an outstanding job. And no one has suggested that in some ways, as a consequence of how she’s handled e-mails ... that detracted from her excellent ability to carry out her duties.”
With News Wire Services