The New York Times was reporting Friday afternoon that the source of the newly discovered emails that led to the FBI reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server was the estranged husband of her longtime aide.
Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), husband of Huma Abedin, is currently being investigated for in appropriate text messages he sent to an underage girl. The FBI’s own investigative notes indicated Abedin had used Weiner’s email to transfer emails to print them out for Clinton from time to time.
Now, the FBI has new evidence that some of those emails may have contained classified information.
Emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server were found after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices once shared by Anthony D. Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, federal law enforcement officials said Friday.
The Clinton campaign was caught off guard by the new development. It broke while they were in the air, headed to a campaign event in Iowa, and didn’t have wifi on the plane. It took several hours before campaign chairman John Podesta issued a demand that the FBI make public what new evidence it has:
Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is “reopening” an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization. Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that have come to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the director himself notes they may not even be significant.
It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.
But just looking at the emails, relative to the earlier investigation, means it’s been reopened, whether that language was used by Comey or not. Playing semantics with the letter to Congress could further damage Clinton’s poll numbers, which by her campaign’s own admission, are getting tighter.
Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters who investigated Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, told CNN the FBI wouldn’t have reopened the investigation unless the new evidence contained “a real bombshell.” He said it’s possible the public could find out what this new evidence is before the Nov. 8 election.
“Well, there’s no question that the e-mails have always been the greatest threat to her candidacy for president, that her conduct in regard to the e-mails is really indefensible, and if there was going to be more information that came out, it was the one thing—as I said on the air last night—actually that could really perhaps affect this election,” he said. “We don’t know what this means yet except that it’s a real bombshell.
“It is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of Congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that’s where we are.”
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