FBI Announces Emails That "Appear To Be Pertinent" To Clinton Email Case

Anthony Weiner and estranged wife Huma Abedin

FBI Director James Comey sent a brief letter to select members of Congress to inform them that, in the process of investigating former Congressman Anthony Weiner's "sexting" scandal, emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton have been discovered.
Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Clinton. Apparently, the laptop used by Weiner to send inappropriate texts to a teenage girl was also used occasionally at home by Abedin.

According to one federal official the emails in question number in the thousands.

From the New York Times:

In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said that emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, and that they “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

Mr. Comey said the F.B.I. was taking steps to “determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” He said he did not know how long it would take to review the emails, or whether the new information was significant.

Mr. Trump seized on the F.B.I. action on Friday at a rally in New Hampshire. To cheers of “lock her up” from his supporters, Mr. Trump said: “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

After deriding the F.B.I. for weeks as inept and corrupt, Mr. Trump went on to praise the law enforcement agency.

“I have great respect for the fact that the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” Mr. Trump said, referring also to the Department of Justice. “This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”

While this all sounds delightfully scandalous for Trump and company, the truth is we don't know what is contained in these emails. There's no apparent crime here in that Clinton wasn't "hiding" these emails.

In that all of Clinton's aides' email have already been examined, this "new" batch of communications could all be duplicates of what's already been examined.

Trump is already announcing "corruption" and "criminal schemes" when in fact, Clinton nor her campaign were not in possession of these emails.

As Pete Williams of NBC News reported just now, the e-mails Comey announced today were NOT originally withheld by Clinton or campaign. Williams says that one FBI source told him, "I don't sense alarm bells going on within the FBI and the Justice Dept."

Williams, who is not a pundit but a respected straight-up journalist, has more information than any other reporter. According to Williams, the recently discovered emails are not from Hillary Clinton.

What is odd is that Comey shares so little info about the emails. And by doing so, he creates more questions and angst than answers.

Clearly, he was trying to be transparent by announcing the discovery of the emails. Had he waited until after the election, it would have appeared politically motivated.

But by offering so little info (three short paragraphs) it opens the door to a lot of speculation based on no facts.

What should happen quickly, for all Americans, is that he come forward and clarify what it is the FBI believes they have discovered.

You can read FBI Director Comey's full letter here.

See NBC News Pete Williams report below:

NBC’s Pete Williams: Sr. officials say—During separate investigation “a device” led to add'l emails–not from Clinton https://t.co/QmmNoxXhOx

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) October 28, 2016

UPDATE: Hillary Clinton addressed the newly discovered emails immediately, calling on the FBI to release all info regarding the emails as soon as possible.