FBI reviewing new evidence in Clinton email probe

The FBI doesn’t yet know if the new material is ‘significant,’ Comey writes.

By Madeline Conway

The FBI on Friday dropped a bombshell on Hillary Clinton’s campaign less than two weeks before Election Day, announcing that it is reviewing new evidence in its investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

In a letter to several congressional committee chairmen, FBI Director James Comey wrote that, “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to this investigation.”

Comey said he was briefed on those emails on Thursday and that he “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 to assess their importance to our investigation.”

He did not specify where the additional emails came from.

Comey wrote that the FBI does not yet know if the new material is “significant” and did not provide a timeframe for investigating.

In July, Comey said the FBI was not recommending charges against Clinton, saying “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case. But he did chastise her for being “extremely careless” in her handling of sensitive information. The controversy over Clinton’s use of the server, reported for the first time by The New York Times in March 2015, has dogged her presidential run since its beginning.

While Clinton said her decision to use a private email server was a “mistake,” she has steadfastly said that she violated no laws.

The news broke as Clinton was en route to a campaign event. As she got off the plane, she smiled and waved — and ignored all questions by the press around her.

But her campaign appeared blindsided by the development. When asked by NBC News to respond to the revelation, a top Clinton campaign spokesperson said, “No idea.”

Donald Trump immediately celebrated the FBI’s move.

“I need to open with a very critical, breaking news announcement,” Trump said at the start of a rally in New Hampshire. “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale that we have never seen before. We must not let her take her are criminal scheme into the Oval Office. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the department of justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made.”

“This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood,” he continued. “And it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”

Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, also cheered the news. “A great day in our campaign just got even better. FBI reviewing new emails in Clinton probe,” Conway tweeted.

A spokesman from the Senate Judiciary panel said they only learned of the new evidence on Friday from Comey’s letter. They were unsure what emails the FBI had discovered and did not know what the “unrelated case” pertained to. However, the aide said the panels will likely seek to find out more in the coming days.

The revelation comes less than two weeks before Election Day and has the potential to change the dynamic of the race, in which Clinton had pulled away from Trump in recent weeks.

Republicans, many of whom had become increasingly resigned to the idea that Clinton was running away with the election, appeared buoyed by the FBI’s decision to take another look at Clinton’s handling of classified materials.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the FBI’s move “long overdue.” “Yes again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame,” he said in a statement. “She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information.”

Continue reading at Politico.