Politics F.B.I. Begins Review of Clinton Aide’s Emails

https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/hillary-clinton-huma-abedin-emails-fbi.amp.html?0p19G=e?client=ms-android-verizon

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. on Monday began loading a trove of emails belonging to a top aide to Hillary Clinton into a special computer program that would allow bureau analysts to determine whether they contain classified information, law enforcement officials said.

The software should allow them to learn relatively quickly how many emails are copies of messages they have already read as part of the investigation into the use of Mrs. Clinton’s private server. The F.B.I. completed that investigation in July and, along with prosecutors, decided not to bring any charges against Mrs. Clinton or her aides.

“This is not a manpower issue,” said one senior law enforcement official. “It’s an issue of getting the emails into a program that can allow agents to look at them.”

Whether they will be able to complete their review by Election Day is unclear, although investigators have been under intense pressure from officials in both parties to do so since Friday, when the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, revealed the existence of the emails in an explosive letter to Congress.


Document | Letter to Congress From F.B.I. Director on Clinton Email Case In the letter, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said that new emails had surfaced in a case unrelated to the closed investigation into whether Hillary Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified information, and that the messages “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

The emails belong to Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton. Agents discovered them on a laptop seized by the F.B.I. that belongs to her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for exchanging illicit text messages with a 15-year-old girl.

While the hunt for classified information is the bureau’s first priority, it is not the most significant issue for either Ms. Abedin or Mrs. Clinton. Investigators have already determined that Mrs. Clinton and her aides improperly sent classified information on her private email server. The Justice Department concluded, though, that it could not prove they did it intentionally, which would be a crime. Finding more classified information among Ms. Abedin’s emails would not immediately change that conclusion.

What could cause problems for Ms. Abedin — and by extension Mrs. Clinton — is if the F.B.I. finds evidence that anyone tried to conceal these new emails from investigators. Ms. Abedin has said she turned over all her emails to the F.B.I. months ago and does not know how emails ended up on Mr. Weiner’s laptop. And officials have said there is no indication that Ms. Abedin or Ms. Clinton tried to conceal information from the authorities.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that the White House did not have an official position on Mr. Comey’s decision to alert Congress. But Mr. Earnest came close to suggesting that President Obama saw Mr. Comey’s decision as problematic. Mr. Earnest listed the many powers and authorities that federal law enforcement officials have to investigate for potential wrongdoing and then said, “It’s important that those authorities are tempered by longstanding practice and norms that limit public discussion of facts that are collected in the context of those investigations.”

Mr. Earnest added: “And there are a lot of good reasons for that. The president believes that it’s important for those guidelines and norms to be followed.”

Justice Department officials had told Mr. Comey that alerting Congress to the discovery of a new cache of emails would violate department rules and norms against both discussing a continuing investigation and taking any actions in the days before an election that might influence that election.

But Mr. Comey is a “man of integrity” whom the president does not believe is intentionally trying to influence the outcome of an election, Mr. Earnest said.

“He’s in a tough spot,” Mr. Earnest said.

The F.B.I. was granted a warrant on Sunday that allowed agents to begin searching the messages. While investigators found hundreds of thousands of emails on Mr. Weiner’s computer, they are focusing on a small portion of the total. The review is being led by the same Washington-based team of agents that conducted the investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s server.

As part of that inquiry, the agents built a system that allowed them to examine thousands of emails to see whether they contained sensitive national security information. When the agents identified potentially classified materials, they sent copies of the emails to other government agencies to determine their classification.

The emails the F.B.I. is now searching could well be like scores already made public by the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, including some of the additional ones uncovered by the bureau’s investigation and turned over to the department this summer.

Among more than 30,000 emails released are at least 10 sent or received by Ms. Abedin that included information the State Department later deemed to be classified and were only made public with portions redacted.

Ms. Abedin, who also had an address on the Clinton server, communicated with Mrs. Clinton many times a day, often acting as a conduit for other members of her State Department team.

 

White House already distancing themselves from Clinton by what they said in their presser earlier today.

 

And so it goes, the probes and investigations will be on going until she is nailed. Won't be able to govern, won't be able to even pretend to be President.

Nixon was elected to his second term with the highest margin in history (or close) but they brought him down withing 16 months. I kind a doubt it will take that long to get Hillary
if you guys voter her in.

 

People have been trying to bring down Hillary for 30 years. She can handle it.

 

No they're not.

 

I'm ok with Clinton getting in and then if the evidence turn out damning, kick her out. Either way, the result will be something a hell of a lot better than Trump. This was the shittiest choice in presidential choices in my lifetime. There is almost no way, regardless of who wins, that 4 years from now won't produce a change.

 

Hell these latest revelations are not even interesting. When she blamed some fucking video for Benghazi was too damned much of a lie for me to tolerate.

 

Yeah, enough already, don't you think.

 

...pretty obvious that they won't find any "new" emails or shocking revelations, just more wag the dog political theatre for everyone to enjoy

 

You act like it was a ridiculous theory, but it was entirely plausible, and I still believe it.

The video caused giant riots in the Middle East. They watched it on YouTube. It was shown on this S2 Off-Topic board. It tried to insult Mohammed in every low way you can think of, sexually. Have you seen the video, like the rest of us? You do know what you're talking about, right?

With Whitewater, when the first Republican Special Prosecutor finished his probe and found nothing, Republicans immediately repeated it with a new Special Prosecutor. He, too, found nothing bad about the Whitewater purchase, after imprisoning Clinton friends for a year. That's the history of the e-mails now...they have restarted the investigation several times, and fail every time to find anything. The minority party just wants attention.

 

They'll find some side issue irrelevant to the e-mail issue, like, someone had sex and chivalrously covered it up from the investigation. 15 years later, the Republican leaders who led the scandal search, now out of office, will all be known to have had affairs (Gingrich), or a secret child with a black woman while being a KKK member in the 1940s (Thurmond), or paying off a former child sex partner with each payment just under $10,000 (Hastert).

 

Funny that you say Criminal with Hillary when Trump is the one who is taken to court again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.