Until Friday when the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI James Comey announced the re-opening of the email investigations in a letter to the congress, it is safe to say Hillary Clinton is cruising to the White House as polls pointed to her lead over her Republican rival, Donald Trump.
The email saga had been an albatross to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential ambition. She and her party, the Democrats have heaved a sigh of relief when the FBI early in the year cleared her of any wrong doing. The emails in question were uncovered during an investigation into sexually explicit messages disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner allegedly sent to an underage girl.
Weiner is the estranged partner of key Clinton aide Huma Abedin. It is not known if the emails in question were sent by Hillary Clinton, or even if they were sent to her.
This unfortunate twist of fortune for Hillary Clinton has greatly enervated the GOP candidate, Donald Trump and his supporters. Donald Trump has hailed the re-opening of the email probe and he has said severally that Clinton should be in jailed for her mishandling of sensitive information through her use of private email while serving as the Secretary of States.
FBI director James Comey has been widely criticized from both sides of politics. There is a long-standing protocol with the Department of Justice that the department does not reveal information about ongoing investigations, let alone take steps to derail or impact an election.
It was discovered that the Attorney-General Loretta Lynch was opposed to Mr. Comey’s decision to make this revelation public. The Clinton campaign has lashed out at director Mr. Comey severely, saying his letter includes more innuendo than fact.
Hillary Clinton called it “strange” and “deeply troubling” that FBI Director James Comey released a letter to Congress regarding new emails under review by his agency 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, the latest in a series of aggressive responses by her campaign.
“It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election” because “voters deserve to get full and complete facts,” Clinton said at a campaign rally in Daytona Beach, FL. “If you’re like me, you probably have a few questions about it,” she said, arguing the letter’s lack of detail allows Republicans to politicize it. “No one can separate what is true from what is not because Comey has not been forthcoming with the facts,” Clinton campaign manager John Podesta said in the Saturday conference call, accusing Comey of providing “selective information.”
“There’s no evidence of wrongdoing, no charge of wrongdoing, no indication that this is even about Hillary,” Podesta said. “It’s hard to see how this amounts to anything, and we’re not going to be distracted.”
The good news for the Clinton campaign is that a lot of early voting has already taken place. Almost 20 million votes have been cast — many of them by Democrats in key battleground states. The Clinton camp has said it thinks the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s emails has been vetted and people have made up their minds.
There is mounting pressure on the FBI to release as much information, as soon as it can. Mr. Comey has said he does not know how long it will take. There are reports there could be tens of thousands of emails that need to be looked at. The Clinton campaign says a lot of these emails could be duplicates the FBI has looked at before.
There are reports that the emails may not have even been sent to or from Hillary Clinton. The pressure on the FBI is unlikely to go away any time soon — and election day is November 8.
