Hillary Clinton’s campaign formally responded Friday afternoon to news that the FBI had uncovered additional emails possibly related to the private homebrew server by demanding the bureau provide further details on its proceedings.
“Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call,” the Democratic nominee’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said in a statement made available to the Washington Examiner.
“In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign,” his statement said.
Comey sent Democratic and Republican lawmakers a letter this week informing that his agency had found additional emails that may be linked to the unauthorized, private email server Clinton maintained when she worked at the State Department.
“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.
In July, Comey seemingly closed the bureau’s investigation of Clinton’s private server when he recommended that no charges be brought against the former secretary of state.
On Friday, however, he told lawmakers that federal agents are reviewing additional emails that may or may not be linked to the bureau’s earlier investigation of Clinton’s server.
The Democratic nominee’s team was not happy with the news when they learned about it.
“FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen. Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is ‘reopening’ an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization,” Podesta’s statement read. “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.”
A seemingly angry Podesta concluded, “It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.”
Shortly after newsrooms jumped on the FBI’s initial letter to Congress, the New York Times reported the bureau found the additional Clinton emails during its investigation of the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal.
