Washington: The FBI has lit a fuse under Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House, announcing it will investigate newly discovered emails related to her controversial private email server.
The story is far from over.
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Clinton urges FBI to release email information
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton calls on the FBI to immediately release all information it has on newly discovered emails.
What we know so far
The bare minimum – but it's just enough to make this political dynamite. The FBI is again examining Clinton's controversial private email server because it uncovered a batch of emails while examining a computer jointly used by Clinton aid and confidante Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, the disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, while investigating Weiner's latest sexting scandal – in this case his suggestive messages to a teenage girl in North Carolina.
What we don't know
Are these new emails? Presumably yes, because FBI Director James Comey had to know that in writing to congress about their discovery, he was lighting a fuse under the Clinton campaign. But insiders also cautioned that some of the 'new' emails were likely to be duplicates of those already investigated by the FBI.
What happens now?
Unclear – because Comey was silent on whether this is a procedural ticking of boxes or a full-throttle reopening of an investigation that has the potential to throw what many, even Republicans, viewed as Clinton's glide passage to the Oval Office. The language of Comey's letter suggests that he was responding to a preliminary FBI conclusion that this is a serious issue – his letter to congress states: "I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation".
What's the issue?
The law requires that classified information be exchanged only through secure government communications. An earlier FBI investigation found potential violations of the law, with classified documents going through the private email server, but its decision not to charge her was based on a failure to find evidence of intentional mishandling of such information, indications of disloyalty to the US or efforts to obstruct justice.
Do we get a result before Election Day?
Comey didn't give a timeline, but given that the earlier FBI investigation took all of a year and given reports that Abedin would have exchanged thousands of emails with Clinton and their colleagues, it can't be presumed that this new investigation will be concluded in a matter of days.
What will voters make of it?
Clinton is winning because she is not as appalling as Donald Trump. But after Trump, she is the second most distrusted candidate ever to seek the presidency, so news that she is again under criminal investigation will play badly. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in September found that more than 60 per cent of respondents disapproved of how she responded to questions on the email issue; about half of them strongly disapproved of her explanation of the private email server; and 56 per cent disapproved of Comey's decision not to lay criminal charges.
Impact on voting
Clinton and Trump have their rusted on supporters. But in the vital swing states news like this has the potential to make some who were ambivalent about Clinton throw up their hands and not bother to vote; Republicans who could not bring themselves to pull the lever for Trump, might give him a reprieve. Voting is not compulsory, so its all about voter turnout.
What has Clinton said?
In a Friday news conference in Des Moines, she demanded that the FBI release more information on what it had found "without delay". Spinning it as best she could, Clinton added: "I'm confident that whatever [the FBI has found] will not change the conclusion reached in July". Her campaign director John Podesta was apoplectic – even as he tries to hose it down. He said in a statement: "It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election. [Comey] owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining."
What has Trump said?
He's beside himself – after weeks of lambasting the FBI as a part of what he parses as a grand conspiracy to rig the election against him, he's taken to singing Comey's praises.
"I have great respect of the FBI for righting this wrong…Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office."
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