Clinton calls on FBI to release ‘full and complete facts’ of email review
FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers Friday the bureau is reviewing new emails related to Hillary Clinton’s personal server, a development that shook her campaign 11 days before the election.
The emails being examined are part of an investigation into Anthony Weiner, according to law enforcement sources. Weiner, the disgraced former congressman, recently separated from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin after a sexting incident.
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The FBI and the New York Police Department have opened preliminary investigations of allegations that the former New York Democratic congressman exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a purportedly underage girl.
The FBI is looking at whether any of the newly discovered emails will have an impact on the investigation into Clinton’s server that was closed earlier this year.
After recommending in July that the Department of Justice not press charges against the former secretary of state, Comey said in a letter to eight congressional committee chairmen Friday that investigators are examining newly discovered emails that “appear to be pertinent” to the email probe.
Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, explained
“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote the chairmen. “I am 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 to assess their importance to our investigation.”
Comey said he was not sure how long the additional review would take and said the FBI “cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant.”
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta pressed Comey to release more information about the emails.
“FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen,” Podesta said. “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.”
Comey felt he had no choice but to tell Congress now or risk being accused of hiding relevant information before the election, law enforcement officials said in explaining the timing. The letter was “carefully worded,” one of the officials said.
The Department of Justice, which followed Comey’s recommendation not to charge Clinton, declined to comment Friday.
Law enforcement sources say the newly discovered emails are not related to WikiLeaks or the Clinton Foundation. They would not describe in further detail the content of the emails. A law enforcement official said the newly discovered emails were found on an electronic device that the FBI didn’t previously have in its possession.
The news is a major development unfolding in the final stretch of the campaign, uniting Republicans and putting the Clinton campaign on defense. GOP nominee Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans, such as Speaker Paul Ryan, jumped on Comey’s announcement to blast Clinton.
Clinton’s campaign learned of the news while they were aboard a flight to Iowa.
“We’re learning about this just like you all are,” a Clinton aide told CNN.
The Democratic nominee has the advantage in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the presidency. She is leading Trump by six points in CNN’s Poll of Polls. The question now is whether the return of the email storm, which has overshadowed her entire campaign, will have an impact on any remaining undecided voters.
Republicans: No honeymoon if Clinton wins
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we’ve never seen before,” Trump said at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, tweeted after the news broke, “A great day in our campaign just got even better.”
Ryan said Clinton betrayed Americans’ trust for handling “the nation’s most important secrets.”
“This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators,” Ryan said in a statement. “I renew my call for the Director of National Intelligence to suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved.”
Despite lashing Clinton’s email practices as “extremely careless,” Comey declined over the summer to recommend prosecution. That move was instantly lambasted by Republicans — some of whom decried the department’s politicization. Comey eventually was called to Capitol Hill to testify and defend the FBI’s integrity and decision process.
First on CNN: US attorney investigating Weiner sexting allegations
Prosecutors in the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for Anthony Weiner’s cell phone and other records, according to law enforcement officials.
The FBI and the New York Police Department have opened preliminary investigations of allegations that the former New York Democratic congressman exchanged sexually explicit text messages with a purportedly underage girl.
Spokespersons for the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and the FBI declined to comment.
The allegations first surfaced in the Daily Mail.
The online sexting relationship allegedly went on for months between Weiner and a girl claiming to be just 15. The Daily Mail reported she said he sent her numerous photos, one of him in a pool and at least one bare-chested.
The outlet reported that the girl said she reached out to Weiner in January on Twitter.
In a statement to CNN, Weiner neither confirmed or denied sending the texts.
“I have repeatedly demonstrated terrible judgment about the people I have communicated with online and the things I have sent. I am filled with regret and heartbroken for those I have hurt,” he said.
Weiner continued: “While I have provided the Daily Mail with information showing that I have likely been the subject of a hoax, I have no one to blame but me for putting myself in this position. I am sorry.”
CNN has not been able to confirm this was a hoax.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump noted that Weiner donated $550 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign last year.
“The announcement by the FBI and New York Police Department that they are investigating close Clinton ally Anthony Weiner’s inappropriate relationship with an underaged female is extremely disturbing,” Jessica Ditto said. “The Clinton campaign should immediately return all campaign contributions from Weiner. America has had enough of the sleaze that is Clinton, Inc.”
Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides, announced last month that she was separating from Weiner after photos emerged of him allegedly sexting with another woman while their son was in bed with him. That woman was described in the New York Post as a 40-something divorced woman from the West.
Weiner left Congress in June 2011 when sexually-charged, sometimes explicit, texts with women other than his wife first emerged. His social media habits continued after leaving Congress and contributed to his poor showing in the 2013 New York City mayoral race, a contest in which he had once been a leading contender.
Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, explained
Hillary Clinton’s email controversy is older than her 2016 presidential campaign — and it’s been forced into the headlines again Thursday and Friday when two top aides testify behind closed doors for a House committee.
The former secretary of state’s use of a private email server might not have been broken laws, particularly if her claims that she never knowingly shared information that was classified at the time holds true.
But the Justice Department’s investigation, the State Department’s processing and release of her emails, a House panel’s separate investigation and dozens of impending lawsuits are weighing on the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner’s campaign.
Here’s what’s happened so far:
What did Clinton do?
News broke in March that Clinton used personal email addresses connected to a privately-owned server, rather than a government email, during her four years as President Barack Obama’s first-term secretary of state.
Some previous secretaries of state — including Colin Powell — have also used private email accounts, but Clinton’s approach was particularly controversial because it’s out of step with typical government practice now and gave Clinton a major measure of control over what remains private and what’s public.
Clinton’s lawyers turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department, and the department has since processed those — releasing some, under a judge’s orders, at the end of each month.
But she didn’t hand in the server itself until last month, after five months of intense scrutiny over whether she flouted transparency laws or put government secrets at risk.
Why did she do it?
Clinton has chalked it all up to convenience, saying she preferred not to carry two phones — one with a personal email address and one with a work email.
There’s some legitimacy to that: Government BlackBerrys could only include one address.
But having her own personal server also gave Clinton — as well as her closest aides — much greater control over which emails were accessible under public records requests.
Clinton acknowledged, both in March when her private email use was first reported and again in Iowa last month, that it “clearly wasn’t the best choice” to skip using a government email address.
What’s in the emails?
It’s mostly innocuous — with Clinton asking for scheduling updates, fitting in trips to her hair stylist, checking on a strange trade dispute over gefilte fish and receiving notes about the balance of a career and a family from a top policy aide.
But the emails also offer insight into Clinton’s closest contacts. Among them: Sidney Blumenthal, who sent what Clinton has said were unsolicited — yet were clearly warmly received — notes with advice and guidance on domestic and international politics.
Many of the emails are, in part or in full, redacted. That makes it tough to tell what behind-the-scenes policy conversations were taking place as Clinton navigated tricky international waters.
Of the 7,000 emails released by the State Department this week, 125 were retroactively classified.
Did Clinton break the rules?
There are laws intended to keep government records transparent — but one that requires officials to transfer emails sent to private addresses onto government servers wasn’t enacted until 2014, after Clinton departed the State Department.
Still, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan suggested last month that Clinton violated government policy and made the process of responding to open records requests more difficult.
“We wouldn’t be here today if this employee had followed government policy,” he said at a hearing on one of the dozens of lawsuits over Clinton’s emails.
Looming larger is the question of how classified information was handled — the subject of a Justice Department investigation and the question that ultimately forced Clinton to turn over her private server to the FBI.
Clinton has insisted she never sent or received information that was classified at the time — though many of her emails have been classified retroactively as the State Department has prepared them for release.
Was what she did illegal?
Probably not, said Anne M. Tomkins, the former U.S. attorney who oversaw the prosecution of Gen. David Petraeus over his having showed classified materials to his mistress and biographer.
Tomkins wrote this week in USA Today that Clinton committed no crime because she didn’t “knowingly” share classified materials.
“Clinton is not being investigated for knowingly sending or receiving classified materials improperly,” Tomkins wrote.
“Indeed, the State Department has confirmed that none of the information that has surfaced on Clinton’s server thus far was classified at the time it was sent or received,” she wrote. “Additionally, the Justice Department indicated that its inquiry is not a criminal one and that Clinton is not the subject of the inquiry.”
What’s classified, when was it made classified and why?
All government agencies are responsible for determining which of their own materials are classified.
But Clinton’s emails are being reviewed by a team of about 12 interagency officials, who are making recommendations on what should and shouldn’t be classified.
State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in August that “there’s an exhaustive, extensive review process for each and every email, which includes not just State Department reviewers going through them but having intelligence community reviewers with us at the time as we go through them in real-time to help make determinations.”
Kirby added, “Some of those determinations are fairly easy — yes or no. Some of them require additional review and discussion.”
What’s next? What does this have to do with Congress? Are there lawsuits over the emails?
It’s not just the State Department’s email releases forcing fresh headlines about the issue.
The House’s Benghazi committee chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy is calling two top Clinton aides in for closed-door depositions this week. Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s State Department chief of staff, will appear Thursday, while policy adviser Jake Sullivan is expected Friday.
Another former State Department employee Bryan Pagliano who worked on Clinton’s private email server has informed Congress that he will invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before the House Select Committee.
Clinton herself will appear before the committee for an open hearing — one likely to attract the most television cameras of any congressional hearing in recent memory — on Oct. 22.
There are also dozens of lawsuits seeking Clinton’s emails. They range from news organizations like Gawker and The Associated Press to conservative groups like Judicial Watch.
The State Department said Tuesday that it will ask for all of those lawsuits to be consolidated under a single judge.
What’s it mean for 2016?
Among Clinton’s biggest challenges in the presidential race is demonstrating her authenticity — and part of that is showing voters she’s trustworthy.
Increasingly, though, voters say they distrust Clinton. The numbers have shifted dramatically since news of her private email server was first reported in March.
Her campaign has shifted tactics in recent weeks, dropping the jokes Clinton had cracked about what she’d once portrayed as a non-issue and sending aides out in an attempt to diffuse the issue in television appearances — signaling that it’s an increasingly serious challenge.
Trump on FBI Clinton probe: Don’t let her in the Oval Office
Donald Trump pounced on the news that the FBI is reviewing new information related to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and expressed hope that the FBI will “right the horrible mistake that they made.”
Trump kicked off his rally here by announcing the “very critical breaking news announcement” to his capacity crowd of supporters, who erupted in cheers and chants of “Lock her up!” as a stern-faced Trump announced, “They are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States of America.”
FBI Director James Comey announced Friday in a letter to members of Congress that through “an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation” of Clinton’s email server. Comey directed investigators to “review these emails to determine whether they contained classified information.”
The decision comes nearly four months after the FBI recommended no criminal charges following its investigation into Clinton’s private email server.
It also comes just 11 days before Election Day as Trump faces a steep and narrow path to victory following a series of damaging revelations — including sexual assault allegations and audio of Trump bragging about being able to grope women.
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must never let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office,” Trump said, reading from prepared remarks. “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.”
Trump has repeatedly accused the FBI and DOJ of colluding to cover up Clinton’s wrongful use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
And while he made it clear Friday that he was not backing off that claim, Trump appeared cautiously optimistic that the FBI’s latest announcement might finally yield the result he and his supporters have been clamoring for. Trump has argued Clinton should be jailed for storing several pieces of classified information on her private email server and misrepresenting that fact to the American public, though he did not explicitly say Friday that Clinton should be indicted or jailed.
“This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood and it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected,” Trump said.
Minutes later, he added: “It might not be as rigged as I thought.”
“The FBI, I think they’re going to right the ship, folks, I think they’re going to right the ship and they’re going to save their great reputation by doing so,” Trump said.
While Trump remained stern-faced as he addressed the FBI’s decision to investigate new emails related to Clinton’s email server, Trump’s supporters and his campaign staff were suddenly reinvigorated by the news.
Before supporters erupted in raucous cheers as Trump addressed the news, Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted: “A great day in our campaign just got even better.”
‘Long overdue’
Trump’s reaction to the FBI news echoed the response of other top Republican officials, including House Speaker Paul Ryan — who has been critical of Trump but still supports him for president.
Ryan called the FBI’s decision “long overdue” and hammered Clinton for her “reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators.”
“Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame. She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling classified information,” Ryan said in a statement Friday.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the news a “stunning development” and argued Clinton “jeopardized classified information.”
Priebus also suggested the FBI’s announcement raised questions about the 33,000 emails Clinton deleted from her private email server, which Trump has frequently raised on the stump.
“This stunning development raises serious questions about what records may not have been turned over and why, and whether they show intent to violate the law,” Priebus said.
Republicans: No honeymoon if Clinton wins
So much for the honeymoon period.
The election is 12 days away but Republicans are already promising years of investigations and blocked nominees if Hillary Clinton wins.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says he has lined up enough material from Clinton’s four years as secretary of state for two years of probes.
“It’s a target-rich environment,” Chaffetz told The Washington Post. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”
Then there’s the Supreme Court vacancy.
Republicans have said for months they won’t act on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the opening left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death because they want the winner of the presidential race to fill that vacancy. Now, one senator says the GOP should consider blocking any Clinton nominee, leaving the nation’s high court with just eight members.
Clinton won’t mess with Texas
“There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in Colorado on Wednesday, in remarks first reported by The Washington Post. “I would note, just recently, that Justice (Stephen) Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have.”
The comments offer a potential preview of what Clinton’s relationship with Congress could look like if she wins the presidency. Democrats are poised to make gains on Capitol Hill and could retake the Senate. That would likely result in a more conservative Republican conference on Capitol Hill that might not be interested in working closely with Clinton.
For her part, Clinton said Wednesday she wants to be “president for everybody.”
“I certainly intend to reach out to Republicans and independents, the elected leadership of the Congress,” she said aboard her campaign plane.
Trouble with Democrats
Clinton could also have plenty of trouble with her own party. Even if Democrats retake the Senate, they won’t have the 60 votes needed to shut down filibusters. And their roster will include several members who represent traditionally Republican states and may need to show independence from a Clinton White House.
Democrats are already using the comments from Chaffetz and Cruz against the GOP.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told CNN in a statement that “Republicans are pretending like they haven’t been investigating Secretary Clinton for years ever since she announced that she was running for president, including everything from Benghazi to emails to the Clinton Foundation.”
“It’s no exaggeration to say that on the first day Secretary Clinton walks into the White House, Republicans will have already investigated her more than any other president in history,” Cummings said.
2 states move back to battleground
“The American people want us to solve their problems, but House Republicans are doing exactly the opposite,” he said. “They have spent six years and squandered millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to attack their political targets instead of working together in a bipartisan way to seek constructive reforms to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest also mocked Chaffetz over his remarks.
“I saw comments from Congressman Chaffetz, he of the gmail account on his business cards, vowing to engage in congressional investigations that actually don’t have anything to do with the Clinton White House,” he said.
Earnest compared Chaffetz to Rep. Darrell Issa, who recently featured Obama on a campaign mailer touting legal protections for sexual assault victims, which Issa co-sponsored and Obama signed into law.
Chaffetz, Earnest said, is using “the same strategy that Darrell Issa tried to pursue when he served, when he preceded Congressman Chaffetz in that role. And it did not benefit Mr. Issa’s personal political prospects.”
“He has now been faced with a scenario where he went from calling the President one of the most corrupt presidents in history, to now featuring President Obama prominently on a mailer in support of his campaign,” Earnest said. “So he looks pretty ridiculous. And Mr. Chaffetz seems to be well down the same path.”
Some Republicans reject Cruz’s idea
Some influential Republicans are rejecting calls to block Clinton’s Supreme Court nominee.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, told CNN he strongly disagrees with the prospect floated by Cruz of blocking Clinton’s nominees — and said he doesn’t think there will be wide support for the concept among Senate Republicans.
“You will not be surprised — I do not agree,” said Flake, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee. “There is a difference between what might be constitutional and what you can do politically. …I think leaving a vacancy for up to four years is not why we are here.”
Asked about how much support there might be in the GOP conference for Cruz’s position, he said, “I can’t imagine there are too many that feel that way.”
Impressions of US direction improved, but divided by partisanship
“I think there are enough people who do not see it as the Senate’s proper role to hold somebody indefinitely,” Flake said.
The first-term senator said he spoke recently to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to get “on-the-record” that he would oppose such an approach and that he didn’t “detect” any interest from McConnell in such a blockade.
Flake has made headlines in recent months for his heavy criticism of Donald Trump’s candidacy. The senator said he’s been worried about the blockade talk gaining steam because he was approached a couple of months ago by a “pretty well informed guy” who is part of the grassroots conservative movement in Arizona who asked him if he would be willing to hold Clinton’s nominees for four years.
“I said ‘no,'” Flake said.
Flake said Cruz and others can read the language of the Constitution to mean that the Senate is not bound to act in a timely way on a Supreme Court nominee. “But there’s a question of what we should do and what we feel our role is, and what you can do politically and what you can’t. On both of those counts you have a hard time going ahead.”
Flake isn’t the only senator to reject Cruz’s notion.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, recently pulled back from his own comment that Republicans would “be united against any Supreme Court nominee” that Clinton put forth.
In a statement provided to CNN, McCain spokeswoman Rachael Dean sought to clarify the senator’s position.
Tequila, dance parties and Adele: Hillary Clinton finally lets loose
“Senator McCain believes you can only judge people by their record and Hillary Clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees. That being said, Senator McCain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”
GOP sought to stop Obama too
The early warning shots at Clinton are reminiscent of Republican efforts to stymie Obama at the outset of his presidency. The difference: Those calls came after Obama was already in office.
In the heat of the 2009 health care reform battle, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint famously declared: “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”
The following year, McConnell, then the Senate minority leader, called Obama’s defeat in 2012 his top priority.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell said in an interview with the National Journal.
He explained in a speech after the GOP wave in the 2010 midterms that he was bent on defeating Obama because it was the only way to shepherd conservative legislation into law.
“If our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things,” McConnell said.
“We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election,” he said. “But we can’t plan on it. And it would be foolish to expect that Republicans will be able to completely reverse the damage Democrats have done as long as a Democrat holds the veto pen.”
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