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Clinton and Trump campaigns duel over FBI director's late email revelation FBI director 'may have broken law' over Clinton emails inquiry, Harry Reid says
(about 3 hours later)
Top officials for the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns on Sunday dueled over the revelation that the FBI had found emails that are potentially new and related to its dormant investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server. Senior Senate Democrats made an extraordinary attack on the head of the FBI on Sunday over a new investigation of emails linked to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as top aides to the Democratic nominee dueled with the Trump campaign about the review.
John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, and Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, assailed FBI director James Comey for defying convention by publicly resurrecting the specter of his agency’s investigation, without much detail and so close to election day. Campaign officials repeated the candidate’s call for more information about the content of the emails to be released. Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, wrote a scathing letter to James Comey on Sunday, warning that the FBI director may have broken the law by making public the review of the new emails and accusing him of partisan interference in an election.
Trailing in the polls with nine days to go until election day, the Trump campaign seized on the news as a lifeline. Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN on Sunday that Comey’s decision to write to congressional officials showed Clinton was “unfit to be president based on her constant flouting of the law”. “Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another,” Reid wrote.
“This was an unprecedented action,” Podesta told CNN, echoing what has become the Clinton campaign’s official defense. He and Robby Mook, the campaign manager, also cited reports that said attorney general Loretta Lynch and deputy attorney general Sally Yates warned Comey not to make the new findings public, and increasing criticism from former Republican and Democratic justice officials. “My office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan action, you may have broken the law.”
“The justice department has had a longstanding tradition of not interfering with elections,” Podesta said. The Hatch Act limits the political activity of federal employees, for instance barring them from seeking public office or using their authority “or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election”.
Podesta added that Comey’s letter to congressional officials was “long on innuendo and short on facts”, and cited a report by Yahoo News that the FBI, lacking a warrant, had yet to read the emails before Comey sent his letter on Friday. In a brief letter to congressional leaders on Friday, 11 days before the election, Comey said he did not yet know whether the newly discovered emails were pertinent or significant. The Trump campaign, trailing in national polls, seized on the news, which the candidate himself said was indicative of a scandal “bigger than Watergate”.
The emails belong to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, and surfaced during a separate investigation into Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. Weiner is under investigation for allegations that he sent sexual messages to an underage girl, and on Sunday, the AP and Washington Post reported, quoting anonymous sources, that FBI investigators have known for weeks that they might find pertinent emails on his device. “People familiar with the case” said they did not know why agents might have delayed informing Comey. On Sunday, Reid went on, without citing evidence, to accuse Comey of withholding information about the FBI’s investigation into hacks on Democratic organizations, allegedly by Russian security services, and possible links with various former advisers to Donald Trump. In August, Reid wrote to Comey to express concern over alleged links between Trump associates, Russian sources and the hacks.
Also Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that agents are planning to search about 650,000 emails for items related to the inquiry into Clinton’s server, quoting anonymous sources. Those people told the paper that metadata suggests thousands of emails may have been sent to or from the server. “There is no danger to American interests from releasing it,” Reid said. “And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.
CNN host Jake Tapper countered to Podesta that law enforcement sources had said they were familiar with the emails’ contents. CNN also reported sources saying the justice department was attempting to secure approval for the FBI to fully search the emails. “By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.”
“We’re calling on Mr Comey to come forward and explain what’s at issue here,” Podesta said. “It may not even be about her server. It may not be about her at all.” He added that Comey had “said himself, in his letter to the hill, that these emails may not be significant”. Four other senior Senate Democrats – Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Ben Cardin and Thomas Carper – have written to Comey since he announced the review, demanding a full briefing on the new emails by Monday.
Four senior Senate Democrats – Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Ben Cardin and Thomas Carper – have written to Comey and Lynch, demanding a briefing on the new emails by Monday. The emails belong to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, and were found during an investigation into Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, over allegations that he sent sexual messages to an underage girl. On Sunday, anonymous officials told the Associated Press that FBI investigators had known for weeks that they might find pertinent emails on his device, but that Comey was not briefed until Thursday.
Conway followed her candidate, who has said the scandal over Clinton’s emails is “bigger than Watergate”, in hailing Comey for disclosing a potential bombshell that could change the course of the election. On Sunday the Wall Street Journal reported that there are about 650,000 emails to search, including possibly thousands sent to or from Clinton’s private server. In July, Comey announced that the FBI had found no intentional or criminal wrongdoing in Clinton’s use of a private server while secretary of state, although he called her practices “extremely careless”.
The FBI has acquired a warrant to search the laptop for Abedin’s emails, ABC News reported.
Comey’s letter was reportedly sent against the advice of top justice department officials, including attorney general Loretta Lynch, and he admitted in a leaked memo to FBI staff that it was a break from policy and precedent to announce a review.
FBI directors have historically shied from public attention. Even J Edgar Hoover, the controversial and ambitious first head of the agency, studiously protected his own reputation.
Comey served as deputy attorney general under George W Bush and was appointed to head the FBI by Barack Obama. He was a Republican for most of his career, though he told Congress in July that he is no longer registered with the party.
Earlier on Sunday, top officials in Clinton and Trump’s campaigns dueled over the new review. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, and Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, assailed Comey for defying convention with so few details so close to election day. Both called on Comey to release more information about the content of the emails.
“This was an unprecedented action,” Podesta told CNN, echoing what has become the Clinton campaign’s official defense. “The justice department has had a longstanding tradition of not interfering with elections.”
Podesta called Comey’s letter “long on innuendo and short on facts”.“We’re calling on Mr Comey to come forward and explain what’s at issue here,” he said. “It may not even be about her server. It may not be about her at all.” He added that Comey had “said himself, in his letter to the hill, that these emails may not be significant”.
Speaking in Las Vegas, Trump accused Clinton of bribing Lynch with the promise of reappointment and said she “set up an illegal server for the obvious purpose of shielding her criminal conduct from public disclosure and exposure”.
He also joked: “We never thought we were going to say thank you to Anthony Weiner.”
His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told CNN Comey had done the right thing by announcing the review.
“Had he sat on the information,” she said, “one could argue that he also would have been interfering with the election, by not disclosing to the public that yet again, for the second time this year, Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation for something of her own doing.“Had he sat on the information,” she said, “one could argue that he also would have been interfering with the election, by not disclosing to the public that yet again, for the second time this year, Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation for something of her own doing.
“She is unfit to be president based on her constant flouting of the law.”“She is unfit to be president based on her constant flouting of the law.”
Appearing later on ABC, Conway called the new revelations part of “a cloud of corruption that follows Hillary Clinton around.” “This plays right into [voters’] reluctance to support Hillary Clinton,” she said. Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, echoed the businessman’s accusation of corruption in less explicit terms and mentioned Lynch’s controversial meeting with Bill Clinton at a Phoenix airport this summer, which Lynch herself said “cast a shadow” over the investigation.
Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, pursued the same line, telling NBC the discovery of the new emails showed Clinton to be “just a risky choice in this election”. Pence also sought to draw attention to Attorney General Lynch’s controversial meeting with Bill Clinton at a Phoenix airport this summer, which Lynch herself said “cast a shadow” over the emails investigation. The effect of the news on polling, in which according to realclearpolitics.com Clinton leads by four points nationally, was not yet clear.
Pence also said Comey’s July recommendation not to prosecute Clinton was “deeply troubling”. The new review was a welcome change, he said. Clinton broached the letter on Friday, calling Comey’s behavior “strange”, “unprecedented” and “deeply troubling”. “It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information just days before an election,” she said.
The effect of the news on polling, in which according to realclearpolitics.com Clinton leads by four points nationally, was not yet clear. Mook, hailing volunteer numbers on the ground for Clinton, told NBC he did not think the new development would stop his candidate winning the White House. Her running mate said on Sunday that he expected Comey to reach the same conclusion – that Clinton’s actions were not criminal – in light of these new emails.
On Friday, Comey told members of Congress the FBI had potentially discovered new emails linked to the investigation of a private email server Clinton used while she was secretary of state. “This is a distraction,” Kaine told ABC. Like Reid, Kaine suggested that Comey had acted outside the bounds of his office, saying the letter was “in violation of normal justice department protocol, and it involves talking about an ongoing investigation, which also violated protocol.
The FBI spent months investigating whether Clinton’s use of a private server violated any laws. This summer, Comey announced that his agency had found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing, but said Clinton’s handling of sensitive government information had been “extremely careless”. “It’s just extremely puzzling why you would break these two protocols,” he said, “when you haven’t even seen the emails yourself.”
“It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information just days before an election,” said Clinton on Saturday, in response to Comey’s letter. “In fact, it’s not just strange. It’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling.” Reid ended his letter with a personal rebuke of the FBI director. “Please keep in mind that I have been a supporter of yours in the past,” he wrote, noting that he had fought to secure Comey’s confirmation through Republican filibusters, “because I believed you to be a principled public servant”.
Kaine said on Sunday he expected Comey to reach the same conclusion – that Clinton’s actions were not criminal – in light of these new emails. “With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.”
“This is a distraction,” he said on ABC, adding that Comey’s announcement was “in violation of normal Justice Department protocol, and it involves talking about an ongoing investigation, which also violated protocol. “It’s just extremely puzzling why you would break these two protocols … when you haven’t even seen the emails yourself.”
Clinton campaign members were tight-lipped on what Abedin may have told them about the emails that surfaced in the investigation of her estranged husband. Reports said Abedin did not know about the emails until Friday.
Pence and Conway called for the Clinton campaign to simply release Abedin’s emails, if they were certain the contents would not undercut the FBI’s previous conclusion that Clinton broke no laws.
In response, Mook told NBC the FBI had not released enough information for the campaign to determine which of Abedin’s emails were even under scrutiny.
Mook urged Comey to make more details of the investigation available.
“If he doesn’t come out and get all the information on the table he’s going to let any conspiracy theory carry the day,” he said.