Comey sent a letter to 8 chairmen of committees in both the Senate and House of Representatives on new information which could possibly affect the email investigation.
Newsweek filled in a lot of the details:
As the Newsweek story explains, the movement of emails to various accounts by Clinton’s aide, Huma Abedin, was done simply to make it easier to print them, as Clinton preferred paper copies. She had been previously interviewed by the FBI.
It gets really messy, really quick. Some of the emails are on a laptop shared by Anthony Weiner, who was being investigated for sending sexual text messages to a 15 year old girl. Adelin and Weiner have separated. The FBI confiscated this laptop.
Now, Newsweek states that Comey’s statement was not partisan, but a horribly mishandled one. I agree with the first part and disagree with the latter.
Hillary’s mis-characterized the situation as she stated that Comey had sent this letter to the republicans in the House and Senate. Comey’s letter addressed the chairmen of 8 committees, all of whom are republicans. It was also forwarded to 8 ranking members, all of whom are democrat. It was sent to these eight committees because they had sought information from the FBI in the past.
Director Comey had no good options, but he picked the best one from the choices he had. He had testified to Congress that he would investigate any new evidence that emerged. Congress of course wanted to be kept informed. The details of the investigation could not be included in Comey’s statement, because Anthony Weiner has not been charged with committing any crime. It would be extremely premature. Comey issued the statement because he had to. He knew the possibility for leaks was real strong, and then any statement would look like he had been hiding something to help Hillary’s election. If he had included any information in the email, this would have been immediate cause for eight committees to investigate.
I suspect that Comey will not release anything more, until a final concluding letter to Congress. So, Hillary’s campaign is likely to be under a cloud of suspicion.
Before Friday’s announcement, Comey was touted by Republicans as Hillary’s friend, who ignored the facts of the case, and swept the whole thing under the rug. One day later, he’s their hero. Of, course, both are completely false, and the reputation of the FBI as being apolitical, is intact. Anyone who can earn such disdain from both Republicans and Democrats must be apolitical, in my opinion. Comey is not concerned with the election but the integrity of the investigation. Good for him.
Will anything of significance come of this? I think Newsweek got it right, if classified emails were where they never should be, on an aide’s laptop, and could have been easily shared with her husband at the time, still there was no intent to disclose confidential information. So, without intent, it is all political fodder.
Read the Newsweek article- it’s well done.
Stay tuned,
Dave
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