President Barack Obama reportedly angered FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton's emails when he said in a television interview last weekend that her using the private account did not jeopardize national security.
"I don't think it posed a national security problem," Obama said Sunday on "60 Minutes" on CBS. "This is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered."
The remarks, however, have outraged federal agents in the investigation,
The New York Times reports, with many accusing Obama of effectively clearing Clinton and everyone involved on wrongdoing.
Ron Hosko, a former top FBI official who retired in 2014, said it was inappropriate for Obama to suggest "what side of the investigation he is on" while the agency was still reviewing the documents.
"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," Hosko, now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, told the Times.
FBI officials declined to comment.
The White House backed off Obama's remarks on Thursday, with spokesman Josh Earnest saying that the president was trying to explain why he believes the Clinton email controversy has been overblown, the Times reports.
"There's a debate among national security experts, as part of their ongoing, independent review, about how or even whether to classify sections of those emails," Earnest told reporters. "But, as the president said, there is no evidence to indicate that the information in those emails endangered our national security."
Clinton is scheduled to testify next Thursday on the email scandal before the special House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two former Navy SEALs.
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