Comey to be probed for pre-poll remarks over Hillary mails
Inspector General Michael J Horowitz said that an investigation will be opened into how FBI director James Comey handled the case over Hillary Clinton's emails. Comey's decision to discuss the case at a news conference and to give out its details 11 days before the election maybe the reason behind this investigation. He said the procedures hadn't been followed.
On 15 March 2013, Hillary Clinton's private email account was first exposed after a hacker named "Guccifer" reached the account of former Bill Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal. The hack showed that Clinton communicated with Blumenthal using the private email account of hdr22@clintonemail.com. On 15 September 2014, the National Archives gave out new guidance disallowing use of personal mails for official work.
"I opted for convenience to use my personal email account. I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails."
In November 2014, the House Select Committee requested access to Clinton's emails about the September 2012 incident at Benghazi. About 300 of Mrs. Clinton's emails from her private account were related to this issue. 30,490 printed emails were handed over by Clinton's office to the State Department on 5 December 2014. The office did not deliver 31,830 private emails from her tenure.
Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta acknowledged that their campaign faced "headwinds" because of her private email server and that her poll numbers had fallen.
The FBI has stepped up inquiries into the security of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's home-made email system and how her aides communicated over email. The FBI requested documents from a company involved in the server arrangement, as well as interrogated several members of the State Department. The FBI declined to comment on the status of the investigation.
The US State Department has accused Hillary Clinton and her staff of poorly managing the security of her email servers. State Department authorities said, she did not follow rules on record keeping and used her private email for official business without permission. Officials also added that despite the poor security, there was no breach of any government servers or email accounts.
The FBI released heavily redacted documents detailing the course of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of her personal email while working with the State Department. The material was a veritable goldmine for White House rival Donald Trump who lauded the FBI's move in disclosing the documents. The FBI has given a clean-chit to Clinton in the email investigations.
The FBI has secured a warrant to examine newly discovered emails belonging to Hillary Clinton, found with one of her top aides. The FBI seeks to ascertain if there is a connection between this batch of emails and those that were under the spotlight for her use of a private email server. Democrats condemned the FBI for "trying to influence the elections."
The FBI has stated that the new emails recovered from Hillary Clinton's aide, which led to the reopening of the investigation into Clinton's emails have brought no new evidence. FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that, "we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July." Hillary Clinton's communications team said that "we are glad that this matter is resolved."
Sources stated that Hillary Clinton, in a conversation with her fundraisers, blamed FBI Director James Comey for her defeat in the elections. Clinton told her campaign's National Finance Committee that FBI Director "Comey's letter raising doubts that were groundless and baseless stopped our momentum." She alleged that the timing of Comey's re-opening of the investigation into her emails, tilted crucial states in Trump's favour.
