Hillary Clinton’s campaign press secretary urged FBI Director James B. Comey Friday to hold a press conference immediately explaining the bureau’s announcement that it had found additional emails possibly related to the Democratic nominee’s private homebrew server.
“We think, at this point, it is incumbent on Director Comey and the FBI to go further than what is contained in this letter, hold another press conference if that’s what it takes,” Brian Fallon said Friday in an interview on MSNBC, “but come forward to the public with more information that explains what relevance this has on the decision that voters were making when they go to the polls – right now – and choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”
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 wrote.
Clinton’s team was slow at first to respond to the news of Comey’s letter. When they did eventually comment on the issue, it was to demand that the FBI director come forward to explain the full meaning of his letter.
“For something like this to be conveyed to Capitol Hill just 11 days before an election, being sent to eight Republican committee chairmen who have shown no discretion in the past whatsoever for keeping anything confidential, and it had to be known that a document like this would get out,” Fallon said on MSNBC. “And so now that it is out, the American people need to have the full facts.”
“When Director Comey said this was something arising from a complexly unrelated matter, unrelated to the case that was closed in July, he now owes us an explanation for why there’s any connection being drawn to Hillary Clinton at all if that’s the case,” Fallon added. “When he includes for the possibility that these emails may turn out to be insignificant, he needs to tell us why is he sending this letter if the possibility still exists that these materials are insignificant.”
Clinton and her team reportedly had no advance notice of Comey’s letter to Congress. When news of the FBI update to lawmakers broke, the Democratic candidate and her traveling press corps were in the air en route to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, was the first to issue a lengthy, formal statement on the matter.
“It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election,” hesaid in a statement made available to the Washington Examiner. “The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining”
Fallon added later in his interview on MSNBC, “We are fully confident that at the end of this review, however long it takes, there will be no conclusion drawn that would at all change the outcome of the investigation that was wrapped up in July.”
Shortly after newsrooms jumped on the FBI‘s initial letter to Congress, the New York Times reported that the federal agency had found the additional emails during its investigation of the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal.
