FBI reopens Clinton email investigation as race tightens

Just a week and a half from the US election, the FBI is reopening its investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information while Secretary of State.

In a letter to several Congressional chairman sent Saturday NZT, FBI director James Comey, said that emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, and that they “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

The FBI is taking steps to “determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," the director said.

He offered no details of where the emails were from, or their contents — but the New York Times says they number in their thousands and come from devices used by Anthony Weiner, the former Democrat member of Congress (and estranged husband of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin) who was forced to resign in 2011 following a "sexting" scandal. The emails apparently surfaced during an FBI investigation into Mr Weiner's habit of sending X-rated photos of himself from his phone.

Mr Comey's agency closed its original investigation in September, saying Mrs Clinton had been "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information, but that there was no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in relation to classified material.

The FBI director said in yesterday's letter that he did not know how long it would take to review the emails, and that it was not yet year if the new information was significant.

Donald Trump, naturally, immediately deemed it was significant.

"I need to open with a very critical, breaking news announcement," he said at the rally in New Hampshire, according to a Politico report. "Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale that we have never seen before. We must not let her take her are criminal scheme into the Oval Office. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made."

Hit by a truck
For her part, Mrs Clinton told a press conference, "We are calling the FBI to release all the information that it has. Let’s get it out.”

The candidate stressed Mr Comey had said there might be nothing of significance in the emails.

But Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile said, “This is like an 18-wheeler smacking into us, and it just becomes a huge distraction at the worst possible time."

Mr Comey released his letter against advice from Justice Department officials. It remains unclear whether the FBI or DOJ will release any more informaiton, or take any action over the newly surfaced emails, before election day November 8.

Race tightening
The race was already tightening ahead of the bombshell email revelation, thanks in part to a steady stream of Clinton staffer emails released by Wikileaks. The emails have contained nothing directly damaging to the candidate, but have frequently painted her senior advisors in a poor light and raised questions about connections between the charitable Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton's money-making ventures.

Notably, Mr Trump opened a small lead in the key battleground state of Ohio and gained to within the margin of error in Florida.

Overall, things were still looking bleak for the Republican before Mr Comey's letter, however.

Although the gap had narrowed from 6 or 7 points to under 5 in most poll-of-polls surveys, his Democrat rival still enjoyed a comfortable margin nationwide and in most battleground states outside of Ohio and Florida (which, in themselves, are not enough to get Mr Trump over the 270 Electoral College vote line and into the White House).

In the days to come, we'll see whether the latest email revelations tighten the race further, or whether Wikileaks has any final surprises. If it does, Julian Assange will want to drop them soon; more than 20 million have already cast a vote so far, taking advantage of the opportunity for anyone to cast a ballot, for any reason, ahead of the Tuesday November 8 election. Early voting is slightly ahead of the 2012 election, then one in three cast an early ballot. So far, registered Democrats and self-identified Hispanics have both voted in slightly larger numbers than the equivalent point in 2012; both presumably negative developments for Mr Trump.

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