New letter from FBI Director James Comey could change the election

On October 28, Mr Comey rocked the presidential campaign by announcing the FBI had discovered new emails connected to its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server. Those emails were found on a laptop shared by Ms Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, and her husband, disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner.

Since that intervention, Ms Clinton’s wide lead in the polls has largely evaporated.

Today, in another letter to Congress’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Mr Comey revealed the FBI had finished examining the new Clinton emails. He said the review had not changed his previous conclusion, reached in July, that there was not enough evidence to recommend charges against Ms Clinton.

“I write to supplement my October 28, 2016 letter that notified you the FBI would be taking additional investigative steps with respect to former Secretary of State Clinton’s use of a personal email server. 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,” Mr Comey wrote.

“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.

“I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high quality work in a short period of time.”

NEW: Comey says they have not changed their conclusions expressed in July with respect to Clinton https://t.co/MlYzg0hvHW pic.twitter.com/CJpqRmp2Ow

— Colin Jones (@colinjones) November 6, 2016

Ms Clinton’s press secretary Brian Fallon issued a short statement on Twitter: “We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited. Now Director Comey has confirmed it.”

Furious supporters of the Democratic nominee slammed Mr Comey in the wake of his October 28 announcement, suggesting he “may have broken the law” to influence the election.

Ms Clinton herself called the development “deeply troubling” and demanded a swift resolution.

Donald Trump, for his part, has persistently claimed Ms Clinton “should not be allowed to run” for president, saying her decision to use her own email server as Secretary of State instead of a government-issued account was “criminal”.

“The FBI rolled over and the Department of Justice rolled over,” he said the morning before Mr Comey’s first bombshell letter. “The system is rigged when Hillary Clinton is allowed to run for president, because what she did is criminal.

Today Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Mr Comey’s new intervention in the campaign “changes nothing”.

“Nothing changes the fact that she’s been very reckless,” Ms Conway told Fox News.

Other supporters of Mr Trump, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, immediately implied Mr Comey had caved to “political pressure” from the Democrats.

Comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he cant possibly know.

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) November 6, 2016

The original investigation into Hillary's emails took a year and a half. Now FBI Director Comey finished the 2nd one in just a week! Wow!

— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) November 6, 2016

We now go live to James Comey and his remaining political allies. pic.twitter.com/zEOQY0do44

— Zeddonymous (@ZeddRebel) November 6, 2016

Throwing away the letter proved a more difficult dramatic gesture than Director Comey anticipated pic.twitter.com/UGywupwBih

— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) November 6, 2016

Trumpers a week ago: Comey is a national hero.

Trumpers today: Comey must be destroyed.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 6, 2016

‘EXTREMELY CARELESS’

In July, after a year-long investigation into Ms Clinton’s emails, Mr Comey issued a scathing takedown of her behaviour - but did not recommend charges.

“There is evidence that (Ms Clinton’s team) were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” Mr Comey said.

“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position ... should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for sensitive conversations, he added.

Mr Comey directly contradicted many of Ms Clinton’s past statements, including her assertion that she’d turned over all her emails and that she had never sent or received any that were classified at the time. He revealed “several thousand work-related emails” were not among the group of 30,000 emails Ms Clinton voluntarily turned over to investigators.

However, he said Ms Clinton and her aides had not intended to break laws governing the handling of classified information, and therefore “no charges” were appropriate. Donald Trump responded by savaging the FBI.

“Hillary Clinton compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security,” Mr Trump said in a statement. “Her email could easily have been hacked by hostile actors.

“Clinton lied when she said that she did not send classified information . On top of it all, Hillary Clinton’s lawyers wiped the servers clean to delete another 30,000 emails, hiding her corrupt dealings from investigators.

“Because of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges she deserves.”

WHO IS JAMES COMEY?

Mr Comey was appointed FBI Director by President Obama in 2013, but only rose to true public prominence because of the investigation into Ms Clinton’s emails. Here’s what we know about him.

• He’s a rich Republican

Mr Comey is a Republican Party member with a reported net worth of more than US$11 million, according to CNN. He donated to the presidential campaigns of the last two Republican presidential nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

He and his wife own a hope in Connecticut worth US$3 million, where they are licensed foster care parents. The Comeys have also donated money to create a foundation to help children in foster care.

• He disputed America’s wiretapping program

While working for the Bush administration, Mr Comey questioned a plan to re-authorise its warrantless surveillance program, which led to him drafting a letter of resignation in 2004.

Mr Comey never sent that letter, but in it, he said he had been asked to be part of something “fundamentally wrong”. Shortly afterwards, Mr Comey met privately with President Bush, who “agreed to do the right thing and put the program on a footing where we could certify its legality”.

• He prosecuted Martha Stewart

When celebrity lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was charged with illegal insider trading in 2003, Mr Comey was the man who brought the charges against her.

“This criminal case is about lying. Lying to the FBI, lying to the SEC, lying to investors,” Mr Comey said at the time, when he was the US Attorney for the southern district of New York. “Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not for who she is, but because of what she did.”

Ms Stewart was convicted on all counts in 2004, and spent five months in jail.

• He’s investigated the Clintons before

In the mid-1990s, Mr Comey investigated fraud allegations against the Clintons in connection with a failed real estate venture. No charges were brought against them.

In 2002, he took over an investigation into President Clinton’s pardon of financier Marc Rich. Again, he decided not to pursue the case.

• He ‘doesn’t give a hoot’ about politics

In July of this year, Comey told a Senate committee looking into the Clinton email inquiry that he “didn’t give a hoot about politics”.

“People can disagree, can agree, but they will at least understand that the decision was made and the recommendation was made the way you would want it to be, by people who didn’t give a hoot about politics, who cared about what are the facts, what is the law, and how similar people, all people have been treated in the past.”