Washington: An extraordinary war has erupted between the Democratic Party and the FBI – just nine days before a bitterly contested presidential election, in which FBI director James Comey is accused of helping the GOP's Donald Trump.
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On Sunday, senior Democrats launched a full frontal attack on FBI director James Comey for revealing he had reactivated the Hillary Clinton email investigation, which had been put to rest in July; and just hours later, information leaked from the FBI on a standoff between the FBI and the Justice Department, over a push by FBI agents to investigate alleged corruption and conflicts of interest in the multi-billion dollar Clinton Family Foundation.
Senior agency staff reportedly suppressed the probe into the foundation, started more than a year ago, and Justice's public integrity unit ruled that their evidence, which included news reports, was insufficient.
FBI agents in New York were feuding with Justice, demanding that they be allowed to keep the foundation inquiry alive, The Washington Post reported.
But with the Democrats reeling after Comey's disclosure on Friday of the new email probe, news of a separate bid by his agents to get into the Clinton Foundation is another bomb thrown in an increasingly ugly war. And Trump will use reports of the foundation standoff between the FBI agents and Justice as a cudgel against Clinton, who he hounds daily, as "crooked … criminal … corrupt … should be in jail".
The Democrats' Sunday attack on Comey was spearheaded by minority Senate leader Harry Reid, who lashed out at the agency director, accusing him of damaging Clinton's presidential chances by disclosing the email probe; but at the same time, Reid charged, withholding information on ties between Trump, his campaign and the Russian government.
Reid wrote to Comey, accusing him of misusing the authority of his office to influence the election by "tarring Clinton with thin innuendo" in a cryptic letter to congressional leaders on Friday. In it, the director revealed the re-activation of the Clinton email affair – that Reid argued was a potential breach of the Hatch Act, which bars the use of government resources for political purposes.
![On the attack: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/j/i/4/d/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
Using strident language, Reid wrote: "Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another."
Reid accused Comey of withholding information on an FBI investigation into hacks on Democratic organisations, allegedly by Russian security services or hackers working at their direction, and possible links between various advisers to Trump.
![Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at New Mount Olive Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida ...](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/e/a/3/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
"There is no danger to American interests from releasing it," he writes. "And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information. By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicise it in the most negative light possible.
"The clear double standard established by your actions strongly suggests that your highly selective approach to publicising information, along with your timing, was intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group".
![Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/e/7/o/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
Former Obama attorney-general, Eric Holder, also joined the charge, co-signing a letter by dozens of former federal prosecutors accusing Comey of breaching Justice Department policy by informing congress of the newly uncovered Clinton emails, which, the letter argues, "invited considerable, uninformed public speculation" on the significance of the emails.
As it emerged on Sunday that FBI investigators had been sitting silently, for the best part of a month, on the latest explosive trove of Clinton emails, the Democratic candidate and Donald Trump took markedly different approaches to the elephant in the room – she stepped around it; he lassoed it and hauled it to centre stage.
![James Comey.](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/d/v/4/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
Despite strident demands for more information from Democrats and the GOP, beleaguered FBI director James Comey remained silent through the weekend – letting his 166-word letter to Congress on Friday stand as the only justification for a rare FBI political intervention that has most analysts qualifying what had been their near-certain predictions that Clinton had the election in the bag.
But information is dribbling from the FBI and other sources – the warrant by which the computer containing the emails was seized reportedly was executed on October 3 and, according to The Washington Post, investigators realised within days the significance of its contents – but inexplicably, it was not until Sunday that they received the necessary court authority to examine them.
![Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/8/w/s/d/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
Seemingly acknowledging the potential damage inflicted on the Clinton campaign, Senior Justice Department officials told media outlets that all resources would be made available to examine the thousands of emails – a scramble had begun, but there were no public undertakings that the task would be completed by Election Day – November 8.
But the Post reported that there are almost 700 000 emails on the laptop, many of which were irrelevant to the Clinton investigation – though it seemed that a "significant amount" of them were associated with Clinton and Abedin.
![Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail at the weekend: even a 1 per cent swing against her could tip the race for the US ...](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/d/u/b/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
In his letter to congress, Comey says the emails were brought to his attention as late as Thursday. The computer was taken as part of an investigation of the into the Internet sexual exploits of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, which creates a loop-back to the criminal investigation of Clinton's emails while serving as secretary of state because Weiner's estranged wife Huma Abedin is a Clinton aide and confidante..
Polls taken in the days before the Comey bombshell revealed a tightening race. In the Real Clear Politics average of national polls, Clinton's support is falling off a peak as Trump emerges from a trough – two weeks ago she had a 7-point cushion; by Sunday it had shrunk to 4.3 points.
![Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday.](/web/20161101220238im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/e/a/7/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gse9fh.png/1477996792904.jpg)
At a Sunday rally in Las Vegas, a re-energised Trump ignored the fact that in July the FBI had cleared Clinton of criminal misconduct, telling supporters: "As you've heard it was just announced on Friday that the FBI is reopening their investigation into the criminal and illegal conduct of Hillary Clinton – [she] has nobody but herself to blame for her mounting legal problems. Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful."
Meanwhile, at a church service in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Clinton made no explicit mention of the FBI investigation. But in an oblique acknowledgement, she pleaded that the congregation not be "distracted by all the noise in the political environment".
Stressing the value of perseverance, she told about 300 predominantly African American worshippers at the Mount Olive Baptist Church: "Everyone – everyone – is knocked down in life. And as my mother showed me and taught me, what matters is whether you get back up. And those of us who are people of faith know that getting back up is what we are called to do."
As Clinton and Trump ricocheted between campaign stops in swing states, their surrogates traipsed from one Sunday morning TV talk show to the next, spinning the FBI controversy as best they could. Many resorted to what appeared to be pre-massaged code words – the Clinton gang was "puzzled", the Trump mob was "troubled".
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and manager Rob Mook each sought to isolate director Comey by quoting news reports that Attorney-General Loretta Lynch and her deputy Sally Yates had warned Comey not to make the new findings public.
"We're calling on Mr Comey to come forward and explain what's at issue here," Podesta said. "It may not even be about her server. It may not be about her at all. [Comey] said himself, in his letter to the hill, that these emails may not be significant."
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway used the unprecedented nature of Comey's letter to congress as proof that there was something questionable in the new batch of emails – which Comey did not say.
Conway also turned the Democrat's argument that Comey had unreasonably interfered in the election back on them, claiming: "Had [Comey] sat on the information, one could argue that he also would have been interfering with the election, by not disclosing to the public that yet again, for the second time this year, Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation for something of her own doing."
In a bizarre twist, after weeks of abusing the FBI as a party to what he claims is a grand conspiracy to rig the election to prevent him winning, Trump spent much of the weekend singing hymns of praise to the agency. It was the same with the polls – after weeks of condemning the pollsters as part of that conspiracy [because they showed he was losing], suddenly was invoking them as proof he was winning [because they are tightening].
Despite signs among Democratic operatives of them being rattled by Comey's intervention, they attempted to put a brave, steady-as- she-goes face on what effectively is the last week of the campaign – talking up their poll numbers in the vital swing states and arguing that Clinton tended to perform at her best in adverse circumstances.
She reportedly has polled strongly in the estimated 20-plus million votes already cast in 38 states that allow early voting – but she might take a hit in marginal Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, in both of which votes are case only on Election Day.
They say she is doing well in Florida where there has been a higher than usual Hispanic turnout, notwithstanding a new poll for The New York Times which gives Trump a four-point lead; and in parts of Nevada. And in Iowa, she has bolted to a double-digit lead in early voting.
A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll revealed that more than 6 in 10 likely voters saw the FBI announcement making no difference in their vote – an outcome in keeping with the super-polarised mood of the electorate. Just over 3 in 10 said it made them less likely to vote for Clinton, but about two-thirds of them were Republicans or Republican-leaning independents.
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