FBI director: new Hillary Clinton emails do not show criminal wrongdoing

fbi

James Comey says surprise batch of emails discovered during Anthony Weiner investigation ‘have not changed conclusion’ of inquiry completed in July. The FBI has determined that a new batch of emails apparently related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server “have not changed our conclusion” that she committed no criminal wrongdoing, FBI director James Comey told congressional leaders in a letter on Sunday.

As campaigning continued ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election, a Clinton spokeswoman said the candidate was “glad this matter is resolved”. Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, did not immediately address the Comey letter as he spoke at campaign events.

On 28 October, only 11 days before the presidential election, Comey sent those leaders a letter informing them that agents had discovered emails “that appear pertinent” to the bureau’s months-long investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server while she was secretary of state.

The move, so close to an election, proved tremendously controversial. In July, Comey had announced that Clinton and her aides were “extremely careless” but that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case against them.

Writing to Congress on Sunday, Comey said: “Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation.

“During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.”

He concluded: “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton. I am grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.”