The story surrounding Hillary Clinton’s seemingly suspicious emails got even more complicated over the weekend. James Comey, director of the FBI, told a group of Congressional officials that yet more emails had been uncovered in relation to Clinton’s case, according to The New York Times.
This group of emails was discovered in the investigation of Anthony Weiner, a former New York Congressman who resigned from office after being exposed for inappropriate messages he sent to a number of individuals over Twitter. The emails were found on Weiner’s laptop, but were from the account of his wife Huma Abedin (the two announced their separation in late August), who is a top Clinton aide.
It turns out, though, that these new series of emails might not implicate Clinton at all. We just don’t know. “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 is important to update your Committees about our efforts,” Comey stated in his brief address to the Congressional chairs. While The Wall Street Journal reports that the metadata on the emails showed that many may have been to or from the Clinton private server, investigators just got the search warrant necessary to read the emails. According to The New York Times, it could be that the emails are duplicates of messages the FBI has already seen, but they have to check.
While the Clinton campaign has not appeared to experience any significant impact since this news broke over the weekend, that didn’t stop Donald Trump from giving his two cents on Twitter and at several campaign stops.
Wow, Twitter, Google and Facebook are burying the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton. Very dishonest media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2016
The Journal reports that some 650,000 emails were discovered in this new case, and “it will take weeks, at a minimum, to determine whether those messages are work-related” and relevant to the previously conducted investigation of Clinton. However, the Times reports that the FBI says they will do whatever possible to get the review done by election day, as the stakes are so high. Comey himself might also face repercussions for disrupting the FBI’s neutrality in the presidential election—several Justice Department officials told him not to make the announcement about the new emails when the agency had so little information and it was so close to election day.
“The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately…I’m confident whatever they are will not change the conclusion reached in July,” Clinton herself stated of the discovery. It seems unlikely that these emails will reveal any negative information about Clinton, but the fact that this story continues to be employed as a means to derail her campaign is significant.