Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager maintained Saturday that the Democratic nominee misspoke when she claimed falsely that only Republican lawmakers received a letter from the FBI this week informing them that federal investigators had found additional emails related to her unauthorized homebrew server.
“I think she had seen the front page of the letter,” John Podesta said in a call with reporters Saturday.
The first page of FBI Director James B. Comey’s two-part letter announcing federal agents had found additional emails related to an earlier investigation of Clinton’s private server showed the note was addressed to ranking Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The second page of Comey’s letter showed ranking Democratic lawmakers were also alerted to the announcement.
Moments after lawmakers received the FBI director’s note, 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.”
“I’m not sure how many nanoseconds [it took for Chaffetz] to release it to the public and try to spin it,” Podesta said Saturday.
FBI Dir just informed me, “The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.” Case reopened
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 28, 2016
The Clinton email investigation has not been “reopened,” technically speaking.
Rather, FBI agents are now inspecting emails found on a laptop shared by a top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, and her estranged husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly sexting a minor. The laptop may contain as many as 1,000 emails, and agents are working to see if they relate to official government work, or if they are classified, or if they are simply duplicates of emails authorities already processed, the Washington Post reported.
Clinton’s team responded eventually to the news by demanding that Comey come forward and explain the full meaning of his letter to Congress.
“It is incumbent upon the FBI to tell us what they’re talking about,” the Democratic nominee said Friday during a press conference.
Clinton then claimed falsely, “[I]f they’re going to be sending this kind of letter that is only going originally to Republican members of the House … they need to share whatever facts they claim to have with the American people, and that’s what I expect to happen.”
It is unclear whether the Democratic nominee saw a copy of Comey’s full letter to Congress prior to speaking at the press conference, which was held more than three hours after the story leaked to media.
Clinton, her aides and her traveling press corps were in the air Friday en route to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when news of Comey’s letter broke. They had limited WiFi access, and many were out of the loop until touchdown.
Clinton says the letter form the FBI to Congress RE: their renewed focus on her email server only went to Republicans, that’s incorrect: pic.twitter.com/DUWnr4F88y
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 28, 2016
On Saturday, Podesta conceded Clinton was mistaken, and he explained that she had likely only seen the parts of the FBI director’s that were widely circulated on social media by members of the press.
“She took a look at the front page of the letter and it was addressed to [Republicans], I think that was her reference,” he said, clarifying, “it was CC’d and transmitted to ranking Democrats as well.”
FBI Letter by Washington Examiner on Scribd
