INTERNATIONAL NEWS - President Barack Obama warned against FBI "leaks" and "innuendo" in his first public comments about the agency's decision to disclose its new review into emails that could be relevant to Hillary Clinton's use of a private server while she was secretary of state.
Speaking to NowThisNews in an interview released Wednesday, Obama said he didn't want to meddle in the law enforcement process. But he criticized any action that might allow intimations or suggestions -- rather than facts -- to pervade the public's view of the case.
"I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations, we don't operate on innuendo and we don't operate on incomplete information and we don't operate on leaks," Obama said in the interview, which was taped Tuesday. "We operate based on concrete decisions that are made."
Obama did not mention FBI Director James Comey by name, although he was asked a question specifically about Comey's decision to make the information public days before the presidential election. And he wasn't outwardly critical of any specific move made by the department, noting that he didn't want to be seen as influencing the investigation.
But he did downplay the implications of the Clinton email investigation, saying the matter had been resolved.