White House: Obama ‘clearly respects the integrity’ of Clinton email probe

The White House on Tuesday denied President Obama tried to influence the outcome of a federal investigation into Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

“Of course not,” press secretary Josh Earnest said when asked if recent comments made by Obama interfered with an FBI probe into whether classified information was mishandled in the former secretary of State’s private email system.

{mosads}The president “clearly respects the integrity” of the independent investigation, Earnest added.

During an interview that aired Sunday night on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” Obama said that Clinton made a “mistake” in using a private email address while serving in his administration.

But Obama expressed confidence Clinton did not create a security risk.

“I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” he said.

Earnest said that Obama’s comments referred to Clinton’s claim that no messages that were stamped as classified were sent to or from her private account.

“The president was making an observation about what we know so far,” Earnest said.

A special intelligence review found that at least two messages received by Clinton contained highly classified information, a claim that is disputed by her campaign.

Clinton’s home email server was set up in a way that made it vulnerable to hackers, according to an Associated Press report.