US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to release all new information in its probe of her private email server – and said she did not think the agency would change its conclusion in July not to prosecute her.
“The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately. The director himself has said he doesn't know whether the emails referenced in his letter are significant or not. I'm confident whatever they are will not change the conclusion reached in July,” she told reporters.
The FBI on Friday said that it’s investigating more emails as part of a probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email system, coming as a new twist to the US presidential campaign that could damage the Democratic candidate just 11 days before Election Day.
The FBI said that investigation was being done to determine whether they contain classified information, adding that it is unclear how significant the new materials may be.
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In a letter to key Republicans committee chairmen in the House of Representatives, FBI Director Comey said that he “cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work.”
The announcement shook up the campaign for the 8 November election, where Clinton is the Democratic Party’s candidate and the front-runner in opinion polls.
Emails Discovered as Part of Probe into Anthony Weiner?
Two sources close to the investigation said the latest emails were discovered not during an investigation into Clinton, but rather as part of a separate probe into Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The FBI has been investigating illicit text messages allegedly sent from Weiner to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, and found the Clinton emails on a device related to that investigation, the sources said.
Abedin announced her separation from Weiner in August after a sex scandal similar to an earlier incident that led him to resign from the US Congress.
Trump Welcomes the FBI Probe
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump welcomed news on Friday that the FBI would investigate the additional emails it found related to Clinton's use of a private email server.
“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” Trump told a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“I need to open with a very critical breaking news announcement,” Trump said
He was drowned out by a chant from the crowd: “Lock her up!”
“We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office,” Trump continued. “I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made.”
Read The Quint’s full coverage of the US 2016 elections here.
“Extraordinary”
The chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign said on Friday that the campaign was “confident” the FBI would again recommend against pressing charges against the former secretary of state relating to her use of a private email server once it wraps up the latest leg of its investigation.
He also said it was "extraordinary" for the FBI to release the letter so close to the end of a hotly contested election.
Clinton Might Have Broken Laws: FBI Director
The FBI spent about a year investigating Clinton’s use of an unauthorised private email server for her work as US secretary of state between 2009 and 2013 after it emerged that there were classified government secrets in some of her emails.
The government forbids transmitting classified information outside secure channels. In July, Comey said there was evidence that Clinton and her staff may have broken laws, but that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges.
“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote in the letter released on Friday. He provided no further details about the nature of the emails or the other case. He wrote that the FBI “cannot yes assess whether or not this material may be significant.”
State Department Says Ready to Cooperate on New Clinton Emails
The US State Department said on Friday it will cooperate with the FBI investigation.
“We certainly stand ready to cooperate if we are asked to do so, but we just don't have any additional details or information at this point,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
Paul Ryan, the House of Representative Speaker and the most senior elected Republican in Congress, said Clinton should not get classified briefings until the investigation was over.
“Yet again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame,” he said in a statement. “She was entrusted with some of our nation’s most important secrets, and she betrayed that trust by carelessly mishandling highly classified information.”
(This article has been published in an arrangement with Reuters.)
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