FBI: New Clinton emails prompt further investigation

In a stunning move, the FBI has divulged that it has obtained new information in its investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

FBI Director James Comey sent an Oct. 28 letter to House and Senate committee chairs and ranking members to notify them that additional emails deemed “pertinent to the investigation” surfaced in another, unrelated, case.

“I’m writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as their importance to our investigation,” Comey said in the letter.

The FBI director had previously said in July that the Bureau found no “appropriate” charges to be made in the investigation, after hearing testimony from Clinton.

Shortly after Comey's letter came to light, The New York Times reported that the new emails were discovered during an investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner's alleged sexting relationship with a 15-year-old minor. Weiner is the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and the emails—which the paper reported were potentially numbered in the thousands—were discovered after the Bureau seized the couple's electronic devices as part of that investigation.
The question of what correspondence was collected on the unauthorized server, and Clinton’s involvement with it, has dogged her presidential campaign for much of 2016.

The initial FBI investigation did find that 110 emails containing classified information were sent or received by Clinton’s private email server, despite the Democratic presidential nominee’s previous assertion that she did not knowingly send any classified materials from the server.

GOP opponent Donald Trump has hammered Clinton on the issue, while website Wikileaks has released emails of Democratic adviser John Podesta that have embarrassed her campaign.

Podesta released a statement on Oct. 28, criticizing Comey's vagueness in the letter.

"FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican chairmen," he said. "Already, we've 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 that they may not even be significant."

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah — who has actively sought an investigation of Clinton by the Justice Department — tweeted that the investigation had been reopened shortly after receiving Comey’s letter. Chaffetz’s office did not have an immediate comment regarding the letter.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., lambasted Clinton following the Comey letter and called for a deeper investigation into her email server.

“The FBI’s decision to reopen its investigation into Secretary Clinton reinforces what the House Judiciary Committee has been saying for months: the more we learn about Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the clearer it becomes that she and her associates committed wrongdoing and jeopardized national security.

“Now that the FBI has reopened the matter, it must conduct the investigation with impartiality and thoroughness. The American people deserve no less and no one should be above the law.”

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., also called for a thorough and open investigation.

“Today’s announcement by FBI Director Comey is an important step toward accountability and transparency on Secretary Clinton’s private email system,” he said in a statement.

“With the FBI already determining that Secretary Clinton sent and received classified information through her private email system, it is important for the FBI to fully examine these additional materials. I hope that the FBI will be transparent with Congress and the American people as it continues to examine Secretary Clinton’s extremely careless behavior.”

It is unclear the source of the new emails or if they are related to hacking investigations of Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, but Comey said in his letter that it may be some time before their importance becomes clear.

“Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it’s important to update your committees in light of my previous testimony,” he said.