NYT: The FBI Has a "Foul Taste" In Its Mouth Thanks to Obama
Drama at the FBI—according to the New York Times, the agency is livid because it feels undermined by President Obama—again.
The controversy? Barack Obama’s 60 Minutes interview about Hillary Clinton’s email server. The outcome? A “foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth.”
“I don’t think it posed a national security problem,” Obama said on the program, angering FBI agents who have apparently not yet decided if they think it posed a national security problem.
“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,” Ron Hosko, a former agent and current president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund tells the Times.
And it’s not even the first time they’ve been disrespected at their own event, they complain. Via the Times:
But Mr. Obama’s remarks in the Clinton email case were met with particular anger at the F.B.I. because they echoed comments he made in 2012, shortly after it was revealed that a former C.I.A. director,David H. Petraeus, was under investigation, accused of providing classified information to a mistress who was writing a book about him.
“I have no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security,” the president said at a 2012 news conference, as the F.B.I. was trying to answer that very question about Mr. Petraeus.
Petraeus was ultimately charged with a misdemeanor, despite the FBI’s recommendations that he face felony charges.
So what does this all amount to? Pretty much nothing. The FBI will decide what it will, the Justice Department will decide what it will and never the twain shall meet, unless Justice feels like it.
He’s not here for the right reasons, cries the FBI, while Obama, I’m assuming, keeps living his life.
