US President Barack Obama says Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton never jeopardised national security in the handling of her emails as his secretary of state.
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While she has admitted that the use of the private email server was not the best choice she has said it was allowed by the State Department.
When asked whether the Obama can guarantee that Clinton didn’t “jeopardize America’s secrets”, the president punted, saying that the FBI investigation is still ongoing.
It would be one thing for the president to say, “I haven’t been sorting through each and every aspect of this”.
Pressed to comment on the disclosure that some 2,000 of Clinton’s emails contained classified information and 22 were thought to have “top-secret” information, Obama registered some skepticism of the government’s classification process.
“I can guarantee” that the agencies won’t protect the Democratic presidential front-runner, Obama said repeatedly in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, which ran Sunday.
For nearly a year now, Hillary Clinton has had to answer (or more accurately, dodge) questions about how her use of the private, unsecured server “detracted” from her “ability to carry out her duties” as secretary of state.
After President Obama addressed the issue during an interview with Fox News Sunday, one MSNBC host was not pleased with the president’s comments. He also said he hasn’t let acts of terror disrupt some of his regular activities because it’s important to communicate a message of resilience and “that we don’t panic, that we don’t fear”. These claims also indicate that there was never any discussion between Obama and Lynch (directly or through aides and surrogates) prior to the DoJ decision to flush the embezzlement case against Huma Abedin. The FBI has taken the server and is investigating the case with Justice Department attorneys.
He later conceded that Obama’s remarks in defense of Clinton were of the President’s personal opinion. “Originally, the Republicans said they wouldn’t meet with him at all”, Obama said. In light of some Republicans suggesting that they would only consider Garland in a lame duck session, Wallace asked the president if he would stand by Garland’s nomination if a Democrat were to succeed him.
Calling on the former first lady’s critics to “keep this in perspective”, he said she had done “an outstanding job” during her four years as secretary of state. “Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department”.
“We have to make sure that what we do doesn’t end up being counterproductive”, Obama said, adding: “Our approach has to be smart”.
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“If I see what has been deemed classified information, no matter what level it is, in open media, it is my responsibility not to acknowledge it”, said Dale Meyerrose, former CIO of the U.S. Intel Community. You can kill some of us, but we will hunt you down, and we will get you. He does say that he does not talk to anyone in the DoJ or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and it’s a strict line that has always been maintained.
