The top White House spokesman said Tuesday that President Obama stands by his earlier statement that Hillary Clinton didn’t do anything to jeopardize national security by using a private server for all of her work email when she ran the State Department.
“The president certainly stands by what he’s said in the past on this,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters during his daily briefing.
Earnest referred all other questions about the State Department inspector general’s report on Clinton’s emails, including whether Obama believes she should have cooperated with the IG probe, to the Clinton campaign and “her able spokesman.”
Instead of responding directly, Earnest said the White House is focused on the “institutional” questions the email controversy has raised about the Obama administration’s commitment to record-keeping rules and “transparency.”
“Based on the report by the inspector general … there were eight specific recommendations that the inspector general put forward to the Department of State about steps they could take to ensure that proper record maintenance was being implemented,” he said. “… All eight of those recommendations have now been resolved.”
“It’s clear that the Department of State is fulfilling their institutional responsibilities,” he continued. “That is consistent with the president’s commitment to transparency and competence.”
Earnest’s brief statement comes nearly a week after the State Department’s internal watchdog issued a scathing report on Clinton’s handling of her email, which found Clinton failed to seek legal approval for setting up a private email server. It concluded that career senior officials would never have given their blessing because of the “security risks” it would pose.
In an interview with “Fox New Sunday” in early April, Obama said Clinton showed “carelessness” by using a private email server but he argued that she didn’t endanger national security because some of the classified material found on her email system did not pose any real risks.
“She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy,” he said. “What I also know is that there’s classified and then there’s classified. There’s stuff that is really top secret top secret, and then there’s stuff that is being presented to the president, the secretary of state, you may not want going out over the wire.”
During a press conference in Japan last week, Obama snapped at a reporter when asked about the IG report on Clinton’s email use, after Obama volunteered to take another question that originally planned but then bristled when the question was about Clinton’s emails.
“You know I take it back – I’m not taking another question,” he said. “We’re in Japan, don’t you have something to do with Asia that we want to talk about? I’ll be talking about this in Washington the whole time.”
“Look, I’ve already said a lot on those issues — I think these are better directed to the campaign,” he added.
