James Comey attacked as FBI reopens Hillary Clinton email investigation
The FBI announced Friday that it is reviewing new emails to determine whether they are connected to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s handling of sensitive government information. The emails were found on devices belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her spouse, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, The New York Times reported.
In a Friday letter to members of Congress, FBI Director James Comey said the agency, “in connection to an unrelated case” had learned of email that “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.” Comey said the FBI “cannot yet assess” whether the material “may be significant” and that he “cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work.”
The Associated Press reported that the emails the FBI is investigating did not come from Clinton’s private server. Law enforcement officials told the LA Times the emails were not to or from Clinton, and subsequent reports suggested that some or all of them might be duplicates of messages that the FBI has reviewed already.
“This letter is troubling because it is vaguely worded and leaves so many questions unanswered,” said four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter sent Saturday.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former attorney general Eric Holder charged that Comey’s letter had “violated long-standing Justice Department policies and tradition,” and he called on the FBI director to “dispel the uncertainty he has created before Election Day.”
Prior to resigning as attorney general last year, Holder directly oversaw Comey’s work as FBI director, a relationship Holder referenced in his op-ed.
“I served with Jim Comey and I know him well,” he wrote. “This is a very difficult piece for me to write. He is a man of integrity and honor. I respect him. But good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications.”
The Huffington Post put Comey in their crosshairs with a poignant attack piece.
“Seeking to protect his reputation for impartiality, the FBI director instead revealed his obsession with politics: the politics of his own image,” Howard Fineman writes. Fineman mocks Comey’s confession that the decision to reopen the case was an agonizing one, “though not nearly as agonizing as it was to the presidential campaign of the woman he had put back in his sights.”
A CNN report states that Comeny and the FBI knew of these emails for weeks, presumably before the last debate, MORE HERE
Comey had previously announced that, while Clinton had been “extremely careless” with classified material on her private email server, he would not recommend prosecuting her.
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[…] Horowitz added that Comey should have coordinated with Lynch before sending his October 28, 2016 letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the Hillary email investigation based on discoveries on Anthony Weiner’s computer. […]