White House Admits Hillary Clinton’s Email Probe Is A Matter Of ‘Criminal Investigation’ — An Hour After Barack Obama Officially Endorses her
In a strange twist to the proceedings on the day when President Barack Obama voiced his endorsement of Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, the White House admitted that the email investigation being carried out by FBI is part of a “criminal investigation,” according to the Washington Examiner.
During a press briefing Thursday where White House press secretary John Earnest told reporters that the Obama administration is committed to keeping its distance from the FBI investigation being carried out on Clinton’s private email system, he referred to the probe as a “criminal investigation.”
“That’s what their responsibility is. That’s why the president, when discussing this issue in each stage, has reiterated his commitment to this principle that any criminal investigation should be conducted independent of any sort of political interference and that people should be treated the same way before the law regardless of their political influence, regardless of their political party, regardless of their political stature and regardless of what political figure has endorsed them.”
The acknowledgement of Clinton’s email probe as a “criminal investigation” has since been decried by Clinton’s supporters as a misstep on Earnest’s part, but Republicans were quick to latch onto the description, arguing that the White House had involuntarily revealed the nature of the FBI investigation.
Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short was one of the first to take note of the slip, arguing that the reference was basically a reminder of the former Secretary of State’s reckless conduct.
“The White House’s admission that the FBI is investigating Hillary Clinton’s email server as a ‘criminal’ matter shreds her dishonest claim that it is a routine ‘security inquiry,'” he said.
“This is another reminder of her reckless conduct as Obama’s secretary of state, where her attempt to skirt government transparency laws exposed highly classified information and put our national security at risk.”
The reference, of course, is at odds with Hillary Clinton’s own description of the matter as merely a “security review,” which, as reports showed back in May, is not only inaccurate but an attempt at downplaying the significance of the investigation.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, the Justice Department has already acknowledged that the probe is a “law enforcement matter” when it declined to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request related to the investigation.
But the fact that the White House, whether or not it was an intentional move, referred to Clinton’s email probe as a “criminal investigation” so soon after President Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton speaks about the confusion within the higher echelons of the Democratic Party about the exact nature and scope of the investigation.
During the conference, John Earnest went on to suggest that the reason Obama could endorse Hillary Clinton sooner than expected is because the president has full faith in the career investigators and prosecutors in charge of the probe.
“They aren’t going to be swayed by political forces. They know that their investigation should be guided by the facts and that they should follow the evidence where it leads. The President has complete confidence that that’s exactly what they’ll do,” he said.
What do you think about the White House’s labeling of Hillary Clinton’s email probe as “criminal”? Do you think Obama’s endorsement of the Democratic presumptive nominee is going to have any impact on the future of the investigation?
[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]
