Hillary Clinton’s email investigation: news and updates

Update: On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials who he alleges are involved in these hackings and leaks. You can read about the new breaking indictment at this link. Our original explainer on the hackings, written before the new indictment, is below.

Original post: There’s one positively enormous shoe that still hasn’t dropped in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 campaign: an indictment about all those hacked emails.

Anthony Weiner was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison for sexting with a 15-year-old girl, the conclusion of a protracted scandal that both cost Weiner politically and reopened an FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, which may have contributed to Clinton’s loss of the presidential election.

Weiner is facing time in prison for exchanging pornographic photos with a girl who was 15 years old at the time, and who, he’s said, “[he] understood to be 15 years old.” In May 2017, Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. On Monday, he cried as he told US District Judge Denise Cote that he is “a very sick man” and has hit “rock bottom.”

Jared Kushner has used a private email address to conduct government business at the White House, Politico reported Sunday afternoon.

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly and aggressively attacked Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state. This new report suggests that Kushner — Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser — may have engaged in similar behavior, using the private email account to write messages about “media coverage, event planning and other subjects.”

Some time ago, Hillary Clinton and her advisers decided that the best course of action was to apologize for having used a personal email address to conduct government business while serving as secretary of state. Clinton herself was, clearly, not really all that remorseful about this, and it showed in her early efforts to address it. Eventually aides prevailed upon her to express a greater degree of regret, which they hoped would lay the issue to rest.

It did not. Instead, email-related talk has dogged Clinton throughout the election and it has influenced public perceptions of her in an overwhelmingly negative way. July polling showed 56 percent of Americans believed Clinton broke the law by relying on a personal email address with another 36 percent piling on to say the episode showed “bad judgments” albeit not criminality.

In the last days of the 2016 campaign — as the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server has surged back into the headlines — the American public has been reminded just how much power the federal government has to choose what to investigate and whom to target.

Typically, that power lies mostly unused: Presidents are usually in office to set policy, not to punish their personal enemies. But one of the major party nominees in 2016 is a man defined by the desire for vengeance — a man who carries, as a rule for life, that if someone screws you over, you screw them back “ten times worse.”

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey sent an alarming-sounding, but vague, letter to Congress informing them that his agency had come across some emails that might be relevant to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Now, the FBI will get a chance to figure out what the emails actually say.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says that FBI Director James Comey is sitting on “explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”

Comey isn’t telling the American public what he knows about Trump and the Russians, Reid says. But, he says, Comey seems eager to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton.

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey sent a three-paragraph letter to several members of Congress, in which he said that new emails related to the Hillary Clinton email investigation had been discovered.

The timing of Comey’s letter — sent just 11 days before the presidential election — created a media and political firestorm, and seemed to pose the prospect of some sort of smoking gun deeply implicating Clinton that could swing the election.

FBI Director James Comey dropped a big October surprise on the presidential campaign Friday by sending a brief, vague letter to several members of Congress in which he said the bureau has learned of new emails that “appear to be pertinent” to its previously completed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, and would assess whether they contained classified information.

Immediately, the political world became consumed with feverish speculation about just what could have been uncovered and how bad it could be for Clinton and her campaign. Surely, some thought, Comey wouldn’t make such a dramatic statement without having discovered something damning. Right?

A federal investigation into Anthony Weiner’s sexting has breathed new life into an FBI inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and concerns that she improperly handled of classified information.

That is, on its face, a ridiculous sentence. It is also a true one. As the Washington Post reported on Friday, investigators seized a computer while looking into whether Weiner had committed a crime by sexting a teenage girl.

Less than two weeks from Election Day, news that the FBI is reviewing new information possibly pertaining to Hillary Clinton’s private email server has left many questions unanswered.

People on both sides of the political aisle are calling for clarification. Others have raised questions over the timing of FBI Director James Comey’s vague announcement. The straightforward response here is that Comey had previously told Congress that the FBI had reviewed all evidence and had not found anything in its investigation, and had to update the record with the latest evidence yet to be reviewed.

The FBI is not through investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Though Clinton was cleared of criminal charges by the FBI in July, Director James Comey sent a letter to members of Congress on Friday that it has come across new emails in “an unrelated case,” and that the bureau will review them “to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

In academia, you’ll often see a paper end with a simple, unsatisfying conclusion: More research is needed.

So it goes with the latest Hillary Clinton news. More information is needed.

American politics was thrown into a tizzy Friday afternoon by an enigmatic letter sent by FBI Director James Comey to members of Congress informing them that unspecified new information had come to light that was relevant to the seemingly dormant probe into possible mishandling of classified information related to Hillary Clinton’s email server.

Since Comey’s letter was released, a cascade of credible but unverifiable leaks to veteran FBI and Justice Department reporters disclosed a variety of things the new information allegedly isn’t and then one big leak about what it is. Back in late September, the US Attorney’s Office in New York seized former Congress member Anthony Weiner’s cellphone as part of an investigation into his alleged sexting of an underage girl. Weiner, of course, is the estranged husband of Huma Abedin. Abedin, in turn, was deputy chief of staff in the State Department when Clinton was secretary and running the email server and now serves as vice chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The FBI announced Friday that it was renewing its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, after deciding not to press charges in September after their initial investigation. For months, the “email scandal” has haunted Clinton’s campaign, and conservatives have used it to feed into a larger message: that Clinton can’t be trusted.

Just look at all the stories Breitbart puts under the “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal” tag. It’s a mishmash of stories — including ones about her hiding health problems, which have nothing to do with email. All the articles together weave a storyline that seems more egregious than the individual parts.

The FBI shocked the political world on Friday by announcing that newly discovered emails have caused the bureau to renew its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

The Clinton campaign has for months thought the worst of the email server controversy was over. In July, to their great relief, FBI Director James Comey said that Clinton would not face criminal charges for sending emails over a private server while secretary of state.

The FBI announced Friday it was renewing their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers, after deciding not to press charges in September after their first round of investigation. For months, the “email scandal” has haunted Clinton’s campaign, and conservatives have used it to feed into a larger message: that Clinton can’t be trusted.

Just look at all the stories Breitbart puts under the “Hillary Clinton Email Scandal” tag. It’s a mishmash of stories — including ones about her hiding health problems, which have nothing to do with email. All the articles together weave a storyline that seems more egregious than the individual parts that make it up.

About 30 minutes into Sunday night’s debate, Donald Trump jumped erratically from a bit of free association about Bernie Sanders and WikiLeaks to suddenly declaring he’d jail Hillary Clinton if elected president.

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp notes, this was extraordinary: Calling for your political opposition to be locked up is an unprecedented act in modern American political history.

Ducking questions about his personal finances, Donald Trump went after Hillary Clinton for her private email server during the presidential debate on Monday night.

Trump said:

The press corps needs shorthand to refer to controversies from a presidential campaign — terms like “John Kerry and swift boating” in 2004 or “Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comments” in 2012.

In 2016, we have “Hillary’s emails.”

Hillary Clinton has come under withering criticism this campaign for setting up a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

But it’s not altogether clear that what she did was that unusual. While critics have said her decision to send emails over a private account allowed her to avoid public records laws, her defenders correctly note that scores of government officials also communicate outside of official channels.

FBI Director James Comey stunned reporters back in July when he laced into Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

“There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” Comey said of Clinton and her team.

When the Hillary Clinton campaign alleged the Russian government leaked a trove of Democratic National Committee emails to help Donald Trump’s campaign, Trump saw it as a “total deflection,” saying it’s “probably China, or somebody sitting in his bed.”

But, if it was Russia, Trump has another job for them: Finding the 33,000 emails Clinton lost on her private email server.

In a press conference Wednesday, Donald Trump openly called for a foreign power to obtain emails written by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Observers across the political spectrum were horrified. Clinton’s campaign said Trump had “actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent.” Even Paul Ryan had to release a statement clarifying that “Putin should stay out of this election.”

When FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, congressional Republicans had one big question: Why in the world didn’t he recommend charging Hillary Clinton with anything?

“I have defended your integrity every step of the way,” the committee’s chair, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), said. “But I am mystified and confused.”