A nagging question has been lost amid the tempest over the FBI’s revival of the Clinton e-mails investigation. As everyone knows, the file has been reopened because of a trove of e-mails found on a laptop shared by top Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. What we don’t know, however, is: Why has the FBI only recently learned about a computer used by Ms. Abedin?
Remember, Abedin is said to have cooperated in the Clinton e-mails investigation and sat for a lengthy interview with FBI agents. The agents asked her about her e-mail practices. Assuming they asked basic questions, as agents are trained to do, they would have methodically itemized the computers and e-mail accounts she used. Yet, the Abedin/Weiner computer, which is said to contain 650,000 e-mails (an unknown number of which are relevant to the Clinton investigation), was not acquired by the bureau in connection with the Clinton investigation. It was seized in an unrelated investigation of Weiner, reportedly involving his alleged “sexting” with a teenage minor.
Why did the FBI agents on the Clinton e-mails investigation fail to acquire and search this computer months earlier? The question becomes more pressing in light of the Washington Examiner’s report that the FBI failed to ask not only Abedin but other Clinton aides to surrender their computers, smartphones, or other communications devices.
Now, there could be a good explanation, at least in connection with some Clinton aides. If, after a reasonably thorough investigation, the FBI had found no indication that potentially classified information was transmitted or stored on a particular device, there’d be no need to seize it. Let’s say X is a Clinton staffer. Let’s also say the FBI finds that X appears only to have used her government e-mail account for official business; that X did not have an account on the clintonemail.com domain; that whenever Clinton or other government officials e-mailed X, they addressed the e-mail to X’s state.gov account; and that X was cooperative when interviewed and convincingly said she never used her private e-mail for government business. Under those circumstances, it would be reasonable not to ask for the surrender of X’s private cellphone or computers.