‘Process
has begun’: FBI scouring 650k emails on Clinton aide husband’s
laptop in reopened case
30
October, 2016
The
FBI has reportedly obtained a warrant to dig through hundreds of
thousands of newly-discovered emails allegedly related to a private
server used by Hillary Clinton. It’s unclear if the renewed probe
will achieve any results before US Election Day.
The
search warrant allows the bureau to scour through some 650,000 emails
discovered on a laptop belonging to ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner and
apparently also used by his wife, Clinton’s closest aide Huma
Abedin. The probe is set to check if any of the texts are related to
the reopened investigation of the former secretary of state’s
private email use.
The
authorization came two days after FBI Director James Comey finally
revealed the existence of the emails stash which was reportedly
discovered by the agency in early October.
“The
process has begun,” a
federal law enforcement official told the
New York Times.
The
new emails were discovered as part of a separate ‘sexting’ probe
into former Representative Anthony Weiner (D-New York). His
electronic devices were seized during that investigation.
Abedin
claims she has no knowledge of any of her emails being on the
electronic device belonging to her husband, CBS News haslearned on
Sunday. A source told the network that newly-discovered emails
belonged to Weiner, not his wife, who left her husband earlier this
year over his sexting addiction.
Clinton's
longtime aide is allegedly cooperating with the investigation
and “seemed
surprised that the emails were there,” according
to the CBS source.
On
Friday, FBI Director Comey announced that due to new findings, the
criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server
had been reopened, as he sent a letter notifying Congress of the
email review.
The
review, which is likely to take weeks, will seek to determine whether
any of those messages are work-related, and whether they include
either classified information or important new evidence in the probe
aimed to check whether Clinton’s actions undermined US national
security.
The
unexpected announcement came just over a week before Americans head
to the polls to determine the winner in the race for the White House
between Democrat Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. Even though
some of those emails passed through Clinton’s private server and
could be duplicates of the information already handled by the FBI as
part of the previous investigation, the probe is unlikely to wrap up
before November 8.
Concerned
by the FBI’s move to relaunch the investigation so close to the
election date, US Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Sunday sent
a letter to the FBI director hinting that Comey had violated the
Hatch Act, which bars the use of an executive branch position to
influence an election.
“Through
your partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” Reid,
a senator from Nevada, said in the letter to Comey.
Clinton
campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook also
questioned the legality of the FBI’s actions. Comey’s letter to
Congress was “long
on innuendo, short on facts,”Podesta
told CNN's State of the Union. “We
are calling on Mr. Comey to come forward and explain what’s at
issue here,” Podesta
said, adding the significance of the emails was unclear.
In
the meantime, the NYT reported that senior Justice Department
officials vowed to make all resources available to conduct the
investigation as quickly as possible.
In
July the FBI’s long investigation of Clinton’s private email use
during her time as secretary of state ended without any charges.
The Rats Are Beginning To Flee The Sinking Clinton Ship
Yesterday,
we reported that the FBI has found "tens of thousands of emails"
belonging to Huma Adein on Anthony Weiner's computer, raising
questions how practical it is that any conclusive finding will be
available or made by the FBI in the few days left before the
elections
Now, according
to the WSJ, it appears that Federal agents are preparing to
scour roughly 650,000 emails that, as we reported moments ago
were discovered weeks ago on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, to
see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton’s email
use, as metadata on the device suggests there may be thousands
sent to or from the private server that the Democratic nominee used
while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar
with the matter.
As
the WSJ adds, the review will take weeks at a minimum to
determine whether those messages are work-related emails between
Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide and the estranged wife of Mr.
Weiner, and State Department officials; how many are duplicates of
emails already reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and
whether they include either classified information or important new
evidence in the Clinton email probe, which FBI officials call
“Midyear.”
And,
as we further reported earlier today, the FBI has had to await a
court order to begin reviewing the emails, because they were
uncovered in an unrelated probe of Mr. Weiner, and that order was
delayed for reasons that remain unclear.
More
stunning is just how many emails were found on Weiner's computer. And
while one can only imagine the content of some of the more persona
ones, the WSJ writes that the latest development began in early
October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the
bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for
possibly sending sexually charged messages to a minor, they had
recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they said, were
from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with
the matter.
Those
emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop
that both Mr. Weiner and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn’t previously
come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August
that the couple were separating.
The
FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography,
people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used
didn’t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs.
Clinton’s email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has
denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the teenager.
As
reported yesterday, it appears that there are potentially tens of
thousands of Abedin linked emails on Weiner's computer:
In
their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many
messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to
or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton’s home that had
been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior
FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a
closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back
to them.
The
WSJ then connects the dots between how the Weiner emails were linked
to the Clinton reopening of the Clinton probe, despite Loretta
Lynch's and the DOJ's vocal urges not to do so:
At
a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI
officials, a member of the department’s senior national-security
staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar
with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no
one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.
Mr.
McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner
investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be
relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the
investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially
relevant.
Mr.
Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case
and notified Congress on Friday, with explosive results. Senior
Justice Department officials had warned Mr. Comey that telling
Congress would violate well-established policies against overt
actions that could affect an election, and some within the FBI have
been unhappy at Mr. Comey’s repeated public statements on the
probe, going back to his first press conference on the subject in
July.
But
wait it gets better.
Recall
that this is the same Andrew Mcabe whose wife the Wall Street
Journal reported last week received $467,500 in campaign funds
in late 2015 from the political action committee of Virginia Gov.
Terry McAuliffe, a longtime ally of the Clintons and, until he was
elected governor in November 2013, a Clinton Foundation board
member.
Mr.
McAuliffe had supported Dr. McCabe in the hopes she and a handful of
other Democrats might help win a majority in the state Senate, giving
Mr. McAuliffe more sway in the state capitol. Dr. McCabe lost her
race last November, and Democrats failed to win their majority.
FBI
officials have said Mr. McCabe had no role in the Clinton email probe
until he became deputy director, and there was no conflict of
interest because by then his wife’s campaign was over.
Which
brings us to the second big topic: the Clinton Foundation, and how
the DOJ made sure that particular probe never made the light of day.
At the same time as the Clinton server was being investigated, other
Clinton-related investigations were under way within the FBI, and
they have been the subject of internal debate for months.
Early
this year, four FBI field offices—New York, Los Angeles, Washington
and Little Rock, Ark.—were collecting information about the Clinton
Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes or
influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.
The
WSJ touches on something fasctinating: Los Angeles agents had
picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated
public corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records
related to the foundation, these people said. So where did that trail
go? Apparently nowhere.
The
Washington field office was probing financial relationships
involving
Mr. McAuliffe before he became a Clinton Foundation board
member,
these people said. Mr. McAuliffe has denied any wrongdoing, and
his
lawyer has said the probe is focused on whether he failed to
register
as an agent of a foreign entity. The FBI field office in New York had
done the most work on the Clinton Foundation case and received
help from the FBI field office in Little Rock, the people familiar
with the matter said.
In
February, FBI officials made a presentation to the Justice
Department, according to these people. By all accounts, the meeting
didn’t go well.
Some
said that is because the FBI didn’t present compelling evidence to
justify more aggressive pursuit of the Clinton Foundation, and that
the career public integrity prosecutors in the room simply believed
it wasn’t a very strong case.Others said that from the start, the
Justice Department officials were stern, icy and dismissive of the
case.
“That
was one of the weirdest meetings I’ve ever been to,”one
participant told others afterward, according to people familiar with
the matter.
Needless
to say, the probe into the Foundation aded.
But
back to the Clinton probe, according to a person familiar with the
probes, on Aug. 12, a senior Justice Department official called Mr.
McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents
were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe, despite the
department’s refusal to allow more aggressive investigative methods
in the case. Mr. McCabe said agents still had the authority to pursue
the issue as long as they didn’t use those methods.
At
this point a question emerges: did McCabe seek to defend or press on
with a Clinton probe:
Mr.
McCabe’s defenders in the agency said that following the call, he
repeated the instruction that he had given earlier in the Clinton
Foundation investigation: Agents were to keep pursuing the work
within the authority they had.
Others
further down the FBI chain of command, however, said agents were
given a much starker instruction on the case: “Stand down.” When
agents questioned why they weren’t allowed to take more aggressive
steps, they said they were told the order had come from the deputy
director—Mr. McCabe. Others familiar with the matter deny Mr.
McCabe or any other senior FBI official gave such a stand-down
instruction.
At
this point the two probes, into Hillary's email and the Clinton
Foundation converged:
For
agents who already felt uneasy about FBI leadership’s handling of
the Clinton Foundation case, the moment only deepened their concerns,
these people said. For those who felt the probe hadn’t yet found
significant evidence of criminal conduct, the leadership’s approach
was the right response to the facts on the ground.
Things
accelerated over the past two months, when in September, agents
on the foundation case asked to see the emails contained on
nongovernment laptops that had been searched as part of the Clinton
email case, but that request was rejected by prosecutors at the
Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn. Those emails were
given to the FBI based on grants of partial immunity and limited-use
agreements, meaning agents could only use them for the purpose of
investigating possible mishandling of classified information.
Some
FBI agents were dissatisfied with that answer, and asked for
permission to make a similar request to federal prosecutors in
Manhattan, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. McCabe,
these people said, told them no and added that they could not “go
prosecutor-shopping.”
Not
long after that discussion, FBI agents informed the bureau’s
leaders about the Weiner laptop, prompting Mr. Comey’s disclosure
to Congress and setting of the furor that promises to consume the
final days of a tumultuous campaign
While
much of the latest developments are known, or could have been
inferred assuming more corruption within government agencies, the
punchline is that the weeks if not months of upcoming work means that
if Clinton wins the White House, she will likely do so amid at
least one ongoing investigation into her inner circle being handled
by law-enforcement officials who are deeply divided over how to
manage such cases. It also means that Trump will be hounding Hilllary
for the remainder of the campaign as being the only presidential
candidate to seek election with a recently reopened criminal probe
hanging over her head.
Laptop
may contain thousands of messages sent to or from Mrs. Clinton’s
private server
Latest
polls show Trump closing in on Clinton amid fall-out from FBI emails
bombshell
Capturing
Florida would give Trump a viable, if narrow, path to final victory
30
October, 2016
There
are signs that the race for the White House is tightening amid
continuing fall-out from the 11th-hour announcement by FBI director
James Comey that he was assessing new emails potentially related to
the use of a private email server by Hillary Clinton while Secretary
of State.
Most
notable were two new polls showing that her Republican rival, Donald
Trump, may be finding a way back into the contest by becoming newly
competitive in Florida, a key state with a large trove of Electoral
College votes, without which he would have no plausible path to
victory.
Additionally,
a new Washington Post/ABC poll showed Ms Clinton leading Mr Trump by
a perilously close two points nationally in a four-way race including
Green Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson at 47 per cent versus
45 per cent, which is inside the margin of error. The same poll had
Ms Clinton enjoying a huge 12-point lead just six days earlier.
But
it is the movement in his favour in Florida that will particularly
encourage Camp Trump. A New York Times Upshot/Siena poll released on
Sunday had the GOP nominee up four points in Florida in a four-way
race, 46 percent to 42 percent. While Ms Clinton has various ways to
reach the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to clinch final
victory even without Florida, that is almost certainly not the case
for Mr Trump. He has to win it
All
the new polls were conducted before Friday when Mr Comey dropped his
new emails bomb, the precise impact of which remains uncertain.
However, the anxiety it has created in Ms Clinton’s circle is
tangible as one after another of her allies called on Mr Comey to
clear up the confusion over what the new emails may or may not
contain.
Their
existence came to light in a brief letter sent by Mr Comey on Friday
to leading members of Congress. It was extremely scant on detail,
saying nothing beyond the fact that they may be “pertinent” to
the investigation into her email server which the FBI formally
concluded in July.
While
it is now known that the new emails were found in devices shared by
Huma Abedin, one of Ms Clinton’s closest aides, and her husband,
from whom she is estranged, Anthony Weiner, there has been nothing
more from Mr Comey on why they may be of interest. It even appears
that many may be duplicates of emails the FBI has already analysed.
"We
never thought we were going to say thank you to Anthony Weiner,"
Mr Trump declared at a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, virtually
taunting the Clinton campaign on the issue. "Corruption is
corrosive to the soul of a Democracy, and it must be stopped. We have
one ultimate check on Hillary’s corruption, and that is the power
of voting. The only way to beat the corruption is to show up and vote
by the tens of millions, including millions of people voting for the
first time in their entire lives."
Adding
to Democrat frustration has been confirmation that before he sent the
letter, Mr Comey was strenuously advised to desist by the Justice
Department which argued it would violate long-existing groundrules
about not doing anything close to an election that could change its
course.
It
seems that Mr Comey may not even have seen the emails in question. In
a subsequent email message to FBI employers on Friday, he said, “we
don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of
emails”. Meanwhile, if he does decide to re-open his
investigation, any new findings may not emerge until after election
day.
“As
far as we know now, Director Comey knows nothing about the content of
these emails. We don't know whether they're to or from Hillary at
all,” Tim Kaine, her running mate, said on Sunday. He added that if
Mr Comey “hasn't seen the emails, I mean they need to make that
completely plain. Then they should work to see the emails and release
the circumstances of those once they have done that analysis.”
Ms
Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, said the director’s
handling of the matter was “inappropriate”. He also urged Mr
Comey to be more transparent because the disclosure came “in the
middle of the presidential campaign so close to the voting”.
Late
on Saturday, meanwhile, a group of four Democratic senators –
Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dianne Feinstein of California, Thomas
Carper of Delaware and Benjamin Cardin of Maryland – wrote to Mr
Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch demanding a full explanation
of the FBI’s actions by Monday at the latest.
“We
request you provide us with more detailed information about the
investigative steps being taken, the number of emails involved, and
what is being done to determine how many of the emails are
duplicative of those already reviewed by the FBI,” they wrote.
The
first sign of Mr Trump closing the gap with his Democratic rival in
the Sunshine State came in the middle of last week, when a Bloomberg
News poll gave him his first lead there for several weeks. Sunday
also saw the release of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll
that had them essentially tied in Florida with Ms Clinton at 45 per
cent and Mr Trump at 44 per cent.
Ms
Clinton was in Miami this weekend. On Saturday night she joined
Jennifer Lopez on stage at a concert held in support of her campaign
and on Sunday she visited a Miami restaurant to urge Democrats to
vote early. As patrons ate Sunday brunch, she said she wanted to get
them “fuelled up” to head directly to early voting stations and
cast their ballots.
Hillary Asks Ex-Prosecutors "to Hit FBI Director James Comey"
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