Last Sunday, Barack Obama claimed during a “60 Minutes” interview that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server was “not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered.” The FBI, on the other hand, disagree — and they’re pissed at Obama for downplaying the severity of the situation while their investigation is ongoing:
Those statements angered F.B.I. agents who have been working for months to determine whether Ms. Clinton’s email setup had 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 had been 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.
The White House attempted to walk back Obama’s comments, but Ron Hosko, a former senior F.B.I. official who is now the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, was not amused:
“Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry leaves a foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth and makes them fear that no matter what they find, the Justice Department will take the president’s signal and not bring a case,” said Mr. Hosko, who maintains close contact with current agents.
Several current and former law enforcement officials, including those close to the investigation, expressed similar sentiments in separate interviews over several days. Most, however, did so only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
If the House Benghazi committee is attempting to demonize Clinton, it seems that the Obama administration is attempting to vindicate her.