Hillary Clinton and her campaign surrogates are in damage control mode after House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz leaks the news that FBI Director James Comey is “reopening” his agency’s investigation into Clinton’s homebrew email system.
Reports the Washington Examiner:
Comey informed Democratic and Republican lawmakers this week that his agency had turned up additional emails possibly related to the private, unauthorized server Clinton maintained when she worked at the State Department.
The news came months after Comey seemingly closed the agency’s investigation of Clinton’s private servers in July when he recommended that no charges be brought against the Democratic nominee.
The additional emails mentioned this week were found during the FBI‘s review of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under federal investigation for allegedly sexting a minor.
Weiner shared the laptop with his estranged wife and Clinton’s longtime aide, Huma Abedin.
The laptop may contain as many as 1,000 emails, which FBI agents are checking now to see if they’re related to official government work, if they’re are classified, or if they’re simply duplicates of emails authorities already processed, the Washington Post reported.
However, details regarding how the FBI found the additional emails, and what the agency plans to do going forward, were muddied immediately Friday afternoon by a single tweet from Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Moments after lawmakers received Comey’s letter, Chaffetz said inaccurately on social media, “FBI Dir just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened.”
