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Obama Criticizes F.B.I. Director: ‘We Don’t Operate on Incomplete Information’ Obama Faults F.B.I. on Emails, Citing ‘Incomplete Information’
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama sharply criticized the decision by his F.B.I. director to alert Congress on Friday about the discovery of new emails related to the Hillary Clinton server case, implying that it violated investigative guidelines and trafficked in innuendo. CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — President Obama threw the power of the White House behind Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. He faulted how the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, handled new emails related to the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s private server, and then shouted out to college students here in a pivotal battleground state that it was crucial that they vote because the “fate of the world is teetering.”
“We don’t operate on incomplete information,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NowThis News, broadcast Wednesday. “We don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.” Mr. Obama’s comments about Mr. Comey, broadcast early in the day as recent polls showed a tightening race, were striking for a president who has insisted he does not comment on F.B.I. investigations. But Mr. Obama appeared to be doing exactly that in implicitly criticizing Mr. Comey’s decision to send a vague letter last week to Congress — and by extension, the public — informing lawmakers about a discovery of new emails related to Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server as secretary of state.
“When this was investigated thoroughly the last time, the conclusion of the F.B.I., the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable,” Mr. Obama said. “We don’t operate on incomplete information,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NowThis News. “We don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.”
The president did not mention the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, but it was clear Mr. Obama was referring to him. Without mentioning Mr. Comey by name — although it was clear whom he meant — Mr. Obama suggested that the F.B.I. had violated investigative guidelines and trafficked in innuendo by alerting Congress last week. Mr. Obama’s remarks, which followed searing criticism of the F.B.I. director from both parties, make it harder for Mr. Comey to defuse the worst crisis of his tenure at the bureau.
Declaring that he had “made a very deliberate effort to make sure that I don’t look like I’m meddling in what are supposed to be independent processes for making these assessments,” Mr. Obama nonetheless expressed confidence in Mrs. Clinton. At the same time, the president expressed confidence in Mrs. Clinton.
“I trust her,’’ he said. “I know her. And I wouldn’t be supporting her if I didn’t have absolute confidence in her integrity and her interest in making sure that young people have a better future.’’ “I trust her,” Mr. Obama said. “I know her. And I wouldn’t be supporting her if I didn’t have absolute confidence in her integrity and her interest in making sure that young people have a better future.”
White House officials later downplayed Mr. Obama’s remarks about the F.B.I. and insisted he had not meant to criticize Mr. Comey. The president’s stop later in the day in this liberal college community was aimed at galvanizing two pillars of his political coalition, African-Americans and young voters, who Democrats say are not turning out to vote in the same numbers as they once did for Mr. Obama. If Donald J. Trump loses here and in Florida, where Mr. Obama was heading on Thursday, he has virtually no path to the White House.
“The president went out of his way to say he wouldn’t comment on any particular investigations,” Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, told reporters on Air Force One while Mr. Obama was en route to North Carolina to campaign for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Schultz characterized Mr. Obama’s remarks as mirroring those made in recent days by the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, who had said that while the White House would not criticize Mr. Comey’s decision to update Congress on the status of an ongoing investigation, Mr. Obama believed that rules intended to keep such investigations confidential were good ones and should be followed. “North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction,’’ Mr. Obama exhorted about 16,000 cheering supporters at the University of North Carolina. It was Mr. Obama’s second stop on a weeklong swing through four pivotal states and demonstrated a new level of urgency among Democrats about the race as well as the personal stakes for Mr. Obama, who wants Mrs. Clinton to carry on his agenda.
For the last several days, the F.B.I. has been analyzing emails belonging to Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton. Agents discovered the emails last month in an unrelated investigation into Ms. Abedin’s estranged husband, the disgraced former congressman Anthony D. Weiner. He was, he made sure to add, not joking. Mr. Obama’s language, here and in the interview, reflected how determined he was to defeat Mr. Trump and betrayed how nervous some in his own party have become over Mrs. Clinton’s prospects.
In a letter to Congress, Mr. Comey said those emails might be pertinent to the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server. Authorities concluded that case in July with no charges. But the letter, sent over the objection of the Justice Department, led to controversy because it deviated from longstanding guidelines. The president also lashed out at Republicans for vowing to create gridlock in Washington if Mrs. Clinton is elected, saying that “you’ve got some Republicans in Congress who are already suggesting they will impeach Hillary. She hasn’t even been elected yet.”
Mr. Obama took a more pointed tone than his press secretary, Josh Earnest, who said on Tuesday that the White House did not have an official position on Mr. Comey’s decision. Mr. Earnest referred to the Justice Department guidelines, however, and said, “The president believes that it’s important for those guidelines and norms to be followed.” “How does our democracy function like that?” Mr. Obama asked.
It is increasingly unlikely that agents will finish their work on the emails by Election Day, F.B.I. officials said. They said there was a chance they could offer updates before next Tuesday. In Washington, Mr. Obama’s criticism of Mr. Comey was only the latest blow to the F.B.I., where the mood is grim as agents continue to review emails belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton. The emails were discovered in an unrelated investigation into her estranged husband, Anthony D. Weiner, a former congressman from New York. The F.B.I. is investigating whether Mr. Weiner sent illicit text messages to a teenage girl in North Carolina and seized his laptop in early October.
The renewed interest in Mrs. Clinton’s emails — a matter she believed she had put behind her months ago — has exploded in the final days of the presidential campaign, with recent polls showing that the race is tightening. But Mrs. Clinton remains ahead of her Republican challenger, Donald J. Trump, in most national polls to date. The F.B.I. concluded the case into Mrs. Clinton’s private server in July with no charges, but Mr. Comey’s letter to Congress has renewed an inquiry that Mrs. Clinton thought was behind her.
Much is unknown about the new emails, including why they were on Mr. Weiner’s laptop in the first place. Ms. Abedin, through her lawyers, has adamantly denied using that laptop, which people with knowledge of the matter have said was identified in court papers as a Dell model. People with knowledge of the matter have said that the emails may have ended up on the laptop because they were inadvertently backed up or downloaded onto an older computer and then transferred from the older computer to the laptop’s hard drive when the older computer was replaced. For Mr. Comey, the short time left before the election now offers no easy options. If, over the next few days, agents find no evidence to change their July conclusion in the emails of Ms. Abedin that they are able to review — law enforcement officials say the F.B.I. will not be able to complete the inquiry by Tuesday — publicly saying so would open the F.B.I to criticism that it was prejudging an open investigation.
Mr. Obama first commented publicly on the investigation last year before the F.B.I. had determined that neither Mrs. Clinton nor her aides would face charges for mishandling classified information found on the secretary of state’s private email server. The president’s remarks angered F.B.I. agents who said he was prejudging the investigation. If agents do find potentially damaging evidence, publicly saying so would taint Ms. Abedin — and by extension Mrs. Clinton — before the investigation is complete. Either move would amount to a change in practice for the F.B.I., which typically says only what it believes it can prove, and only in court.
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Mr. Obama said on “60 Minutes” on CBS in October 2015. 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.” “The risk of harm is greater if he comes out without all the facts,” Chris Voss, a former F.B.I. agent, said of Mr. Comey.
Saying nothing, however, allows suspicion to hang over Mrs. Clinton’s campaign in the final days of the race. Mr. Trump has already capitalized on the F.B.I. review at his rallies, calling it evidence of what he calls Mrs. Clinton’s corrupt and criminal behavior.
Mr. Comey’s letter has also put Mr. Obama into a delicate position at a crucial time in the race, essentially forcing him to choose between his own institutional imperative to refrain from meddling in a federal law enforcement matter and his political impulse to fiercely defend Mrs. Clinton.
White House officials later played down Mr. Obama’s remarks about the F.B.I. and insisted he had not meant to criticize Mr. Comey.
“The president went out of his way to say he wouldn’t comment on any particular investigations,” Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, told reporters on Air Force One while Mr. Obama was en route to North Carolina to campaign for Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Schultz characterized Mr. Obama’s remarks as mirroring those made in recent days by the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, who had said that while the White House would not criticize Mr. Comey’s decision to update Congress on the status of a continuing investigation, Mr. Obama believed that rules intended to keep such investigations confidential were good ones and should be followed.
Much is unknown about the newly discovered emails, including why they were on Mr. Weiner’s laptop in the first place. Ms. Abedin, through her lawyers, has adamantly denied using that laptop. One theory of how the emails ended up there, according to several of the people, is that they may have been inadvertently backed up or downloaded onto an older computer and then transferred from the older computer to the laptop’s hard drive when the older computer was replaced.
Mr. Obama, affecting a bit of the local accent, repeatedly said he had come to do “bidness,” name-dropped the Tar Heels basketball team, and could barely contain his laughter as he described some of Mr. Trump’s more provocative remarks.
But he also directed the millennials in the audience to pay attention as he described the ugly history of the struggle for black voting rights and North Carolina’s more recent effort to make it harder to cast a ballot. Alluding to a 100-year-old black woman and lifelong resident of the state whose voting eligibility was recently questioned, Mr. Obama said North Carolinians would be complicit in what he called “voter suppression” if they did not show up at the polls.
“If you don’t vote you’ve done the work of those who would suppress your vote without them having to lift a finger,” the president warned. He referred to Mr. Trump’s repeated allegations of voting fraud in “certain areas,” making it clear that he thinks the Republican was talking about black communities. “Where are those ‘certain areas’ he’s talking about?” Mr. Obama asked with a knowing tone.
Mr. Obama left little doubt about the implications in the state Mrs. Clinton has the best chance to turn from red to blue.“If Hillary wins North Carolina,” he said, “she wins.”
In North Carolina, which Mr. Obama narrowly lost in 2012, early voting rates among African-Americans and young voters have so far been below the level of four years ago. Democrats have seen improvements in these numbers in recent days as more early voting locations have opened up and they were able to drive out African-American voters at “souls to the polls” events last weekend.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama is to campaign in Miami and Jacksonville, two of Florida’s most heavily African-American cities. He is scheduled to return to North Carolina on Friday, when he will appear in Charlotte and Fayetteville, both with sizable black populations, before going back to Orlando on Saturday for the final day of early voting in Florida.