“I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations, we don’t operate on innuendo,” Obama said in the interview published Wednesday. “We don’t operate on incomplete information. We don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made.”

The president noted that Comey himself decided not to recommend criminal charges against Clinton for mishandling classified information on her private email server as secretary of State.

“When this was investigated thoroughly the last time, the conclusion … was that, you know, she made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was, you know, prosecutable,” Obama said.

Comey has endured a firestorm of criticism after he sent a letter to Congress last Friday saying that his agency was probing messages that could be linked to the investigation into Clinton’s server.