The Clinton email investigation that shut down without charges in July 2016 resurfaced on Oct. 28, 2016 when FBI agents stumbled across a trove of emails while examining whether former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of one of Clinton’s closest aides, Huma Abedein. Although the trove of emails was discovered weeks ago, FBI Director James Comey did not disclose this pivotal information to the Congress until Oct. 28.
The disclosure raised a lot of suspicion as the discovery was withheld and released dangerously close to Election Day. Based on reports by CNN, the Democrats are outraged over the way Comey has handled the case. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign manager said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that “he might have taken the first step of actually having looked at them before he did this in the middle of a presidential campaign, so close to the voting.”
Trump, on the other hand, is capitalizing on the revival of the email controversy and is hoping this could be a potent weapon he could use against Clinton until the very end of the presidential race. The New York Times further reported that the FBI director said in his letter to Congress that he did not know how long it would take to review all of the emails. The FBI officials also were not sure how many of the emails were duplicates and if they contained any classified information at all.
The Clinton email controversy was further fueled on Oct. 30, when former Senator Harry Reid accused Comey of influencing the presidential election by way of misusing the power that comes with his position by writing to Congress that additional emails, that could possibly be related to Hillary Clinton’s private server, were being probed with renewed vigor, based on reports by the LA Times.
In a letter to Comey, Reid wrote that such misuse of power and authority could very well mean that he risked a potential violation of the Hatch Act, which prevents use of government resources for political purposes. Reid continued to attack Comey in his letter by bringing to the fore the fact that the FBI had intentionally refused to release information about the relationship between Russia, Republican nominee Donald Trump and his campaign. The LA Times reported that right now, it is too early to assess how much the new discovery will affect the election.
Several days, although there are not many left, will have to pass before polls can predict the impact on the presidential race. The polls, however, have made a preliminary prediction that Republicans who had never supported Hillary Clinton will not go back on their decision, whatsoever and Democrats who do support Clinton will hold ground as well. The general trend so far, after the big shockwave, is that voters haven’t swayed much.
