William Cummings

USA TODAY

Fox News anchor Bret Baier apologized on air Friday for his report that Hillary Clinton faces a "likely" indictment as the result of a federal investigation into the Clinton Foundation and for his report that Clinton's private email server had been hacked by five foreign intelligence agencies.

Both of Baier's mistaken reports were made Wednesday night in an appearance with Fox News Channel's Brit Hume. At the time, Baier said the information was based on "two separate sources with intimate knowledge of the FBI investigations into the Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation."

Baier "clarified" his reporting Friday on the Fox News show Happening Now, hosted by Jon Scott.

"On the hacking of Clinton's private, unsecured server: While multiple sources believe and are operating under the working assumption that the server has been hacked, and some had specific quotes to that belief, there are to this day no digital fingerprints of such breaches," Baier said Friday on the Fox News show Happening Now, hosted by Jon Scott.

Baier admitted the report was based on a single, anonymous source.

He then said his statement that an indictment was "likely" in the investigation into the Clinton Foundation was a "mistake." Baier had already backtracked somewhat the previous night, calling the wording "inartful."

"Well, that just wasn't inartful, it was a mistake and for that I'm sorry," Baier said. "I should have said they will continue to build their case. Indictment obviously is a very loaded word, John, especially in this atmosphere and no one knows if there would or would not be an indictment no matter how strong investigators feel their evidence is."

Several news organizations reported Thursday that Baier's assertion was incorrect.

Baier stood by his report that there is an ongoing FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation that began more than a year ago.

Republican nominee Donald Trump has used Baier's incorrect reporting in his campaign speeches. He repeated the claim that "FBI agents says their investigation is likely to yield an indictment" on Friday, despite Baier's apology.

The FBI has drawn heavy criticism for repeated leaks about the Clinton investigations, including from President Obama who said Thursday, "we don't operate on innuendo, we don't operate on incomplete information, we don't operate on leaks."

Obama critical of FBI 'leaks' and 'innuendo' in Clinton investigation