RUTHFULLY YOURS

The FBI bombshell is not necessarily a gamechanging event. The Clinton campaign, and its mainstream media extension, have weathered with surprising ease the fainting episode on September 11.

In the next two days they will focus on:

the possibility (they will claim likelihood) that Anthony Weiner’s/Huma Abedin’s server does not contain any emails not known to the FBI already, let alone those designated confidential, classified, secret or top secret – that was Hillary Clinton’s predictable immediate reaction;
that the FBI will not be able to sift through thousands of emails quickly enough to provide a clear answer to (1) before the election, which is the coded message behind the Clinton camp’s demand for a “detailed and thorough” investigation – demands for “immediate” disclosure notwithstanding – and an unnamed official has already indicated that it was not likely that the FBI’s review of the additional emails could be completed by Election Day; and
that the FBI was acting under political pressure from Clinton’s foes: Sen. Dianne Feinstein has already declared that “the FBI has a history of extreme caution near Election Day so as not to influence the results. Today’s break from that tradition is appalling.”

The one truly appalling event in this saga was James Comey’s decision last spring not to ask for a grand jury, without which the entire investigation into Clinton’s emails was predictably sidetracked. On that inglorious form, his surprise Friday announcement may indicate that the potential for scandal is so great that his options for further damage limitation in Clinton’s interest were extremely limited.

However . . . In 1982 I interviewed for the BBC World Service one of Ireland’s best respected diplomats and political commentators, Connor Cruise O’Brien, at his home by the cliffs above the Irish Sea. In passing he mentioned Ireland’s scandal-ridden prime minister of the day, Charles Haughey, who had managed repeatedly to survive numerous disclosures of corruption and wrongdoing. O’Brian said that if he saw Charlie Haughey “buried at midnight at a crossroads with a stake driven through his heart, I should continue to wear a clove of garlic around my neck, just in case.”

WASHINGTON — A new trove of emails that appear pertinent to the now-closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server was discovered after the F.B.I. seized at least one electronic device shared by Anthony D. Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, federal law enforcement officials said Friday.

The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the tens of thousands — potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.

In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said that emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, and that they “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

Mr. Comey said the F.B.I. was taking steps to “determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” He said he did not know how long it would take to review the emails, or whether the new information was significant.

Mr. Trump has fallen behind Mrs. Clinton in most national polls and in many key states. Polls have been tightening in recent days, however, amid the daily release of hacked Clinton campaign emails published by WikiLeaks.

Mr. Trump seized on the F.B.I. action on Friday at a rally in New Hampshire. To cheers of “lock her up” from his supporters, Mr. Trump said: “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

After deriding the F.B.I. for weeks as inept and corrupt, Mr. Trump went on to praise the law enforcement agency.

The FBI has renewed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s secret emails, Director James Comey told Congress in a new letter Friday, heightening the stakes for the Democratic presidential nominee with less than two weeks before Election Day.

The FBI has renewed its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s secret emails, Director James Comey told Congressin a new letter Friday, heightening the stakes for the Democratic presidential nominee with less than two weeks before Election Day.

Mr. Comey said his agents learned of new emails “pertinent” to their probe while working on an unrelated case. He said his agents need to review those messages to see whether they contain classified information and whether they affect his previous decision.

In July, Mr. Comey announced that while he determined Mrs. Clinton did mishandle classified information, she was too inept to know the risks she was running, so he couldn’t prove she did it intentionally — undercutting a criminal case.

His new announcement Friday threatened to upend the presidential campaign.

Donald Trump is taking the high road in the wake of the October surprise of the director of the FBI, Jas. Comey, who announced earlier this afternoon that the bureau will reopen — if that’s what it’s doing — the investigation in respect of Secretary Clinton’s email. Mr. Trump, in remarks made but minutes after the announcement, praised both the FBI and the Justice Department for “courage.” Mr. Comey’s letter, in any event, is quite the October surprise.

“In previous Congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s personal email server,” Mr. Comey wrote to committee chairmen at Congress. “Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony. In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”

“I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation. Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether this material may be significant.”

Even with the vagueness the development is huge, coming as it does ten days before an election in which the candidate at the center of this probe is regarded by the public with record distrust. It is a tragedy for Mrs. Clinton, but people don’t trust her. That, more than the sex scandals and Donald Trump’s rough-hewn temperament, is the central character question in this campaign. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has uncovered and is reviewing new evidence in connection with its investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s email server, a probe that the FBI had closed this summer.

In a letter to Congress, FBI director James Comey said the FBI had discovered new emails in an unrelated case that “appear to be pertinent to the investigation” into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information while she was serving in the State Department.

“I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” Mr. Comey wrote Friday to a group of congressional committee chairmen and ranking members.

The emails in question were found during the search of a device in the FBI probe of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is being investigated for allegedly sending sexually explicit messages to a minor, a person familiar with the case said.

Mr. Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime senior aide of Mrs. Clinton who recently announced she was separating from Mr. Weiner. Ms. Abedin was questioned earlier this year by the FBI in the Clinton email probe.

On Friday, Mr. Comey said it wasn’t clear whether the new emails would be important to the probe. “The FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work,” he wrote.

Mr. Comey recommended no charges against Mrs. Clinton or her aides when the investigation was closed this summer.

The announcement of a renewed probe into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of sensitive and classified information comes with just 11 days left in the increasingly bitter presidential contest between her and Republican opponent Donald Trump. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON — One of the eight GOP committee chairmen notified by FBI Director James Comey about new emails pertaining to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server urged the bureau to finish its review before Election Day.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who leads the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, responded to Comey’s notification to Congress that he green-lighted “appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

Comey stressed that “the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work.”

The emails in question reportedly were recovered from electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner during the FBI’s probe of the former congressman sexting a 15-year-old. CNN reported that the new emails were not written by Clinton.

In his letter today, Shelby requested that the FBI “expeditiously and thoroughly conduct its review” due to “the serious nature of this matter.”

“Unfortunately, it has now become apparent that the FBI, with all its extensive resources and highly-trained personnel, closed an incomplete investigation that resulted in only partial findings. I firmly believe that the American people deserve to know the facts – all of them.” The emphasis on those last three words was added by the senator.

Shelby, who is up for re-election this year but expected to keep his seat, added that how the investigation is conducted is “critical to the integrity of the FBI and the American people’s ability to place their trust in government.”