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Emails Again, This Time With Anthony Weiner
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDOCT. 28, 2016

Every time Americans start thinking nothing more can surprise them in this presidential campaign, something detonates to prove them wrong. So it was that on Friday, 11 days from Election Day, the F.B.I. director, James Comey, sent a cryptic letter to Congress saying: “In connection with an unrelated case, the F.B.I. has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent” to its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Whose emails? About what? Do they have any connection to Mrs. Clinton herself? Mr. Comey wasn’t saying. Indeed, he appeared to have no idea. He went on to inform Congress that the F.B.I. “cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant,” nor could he even predict how long it would take the F.B.I. to figure that out.

In a rare moment of bipartisan agreement — if not mutual interest — the campaigns of both Mrs. Clinton and Donald Trump demanded, quite correctly, that Mr. Comey provide more information, and fast.


According to numerous reports on Friday evening, the new emails were discovered during the bureau’s investigation of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, an aide and confidante of Mrs. Clinton’s. Mr. Weiner is being investigated in connection with illicit text messages he sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.

Mr. Comey clearly found himself in a bind. On July 5, he disclosed more than the F.B.I. typically does in an investigation, when he announced that the F.B.I. would not recommend that the Department of Justice pursue charges against Mrs. Clinton for mishandling classified material through what he called her “extremely careless” use of a private server. That same week, he testified before Congress that his investigators had found insufficient evidence to warrant prosecution of Mrs. Clinton. The discovery of a new email trove presented him with a choice between risking opprobrium for not revealing its existence until after the election or delivering his deeply unsatisfying letter on Friday.

There is so far no indication that Mr. Comey’s missive means the F.B.I. is “reopening” its investigation into Mrs. Clinton, as hyperventilating Republicans, including Mr. Trump, are suggesting, nor is it an acknowledgment that the F.B.I. erred in its earlier efforts. It doesn’t mean that anybody within the F.B.I. is trying to influence the election, as some panicky Democrats are implying. But without more information, it’s impossible for voters to judge the significance of this discovery as they head to the polls.

Mrs. Clinton, as she has acknowledged, is responsible for this mess, which led Friday night to a gobsmacking headline on CNN: “Weiner Sexting Probe Leads F.B.I. to Review Clinton Case.” If she is elected, she would do well to recall that line should she ever consider being less than forthcoming. Her apparent effort to blunt scrutiny by means of that private server has only led to far more damaging scrutiny and suspicion, with no end in sight.

But Mr. Comey’s failure to provide any specifics about a new, potentially important development, less than two weeks before Election Day, is confounding. As Mr. Comey put it in July: “The American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest.” They deserve details even more urgently today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/opinion/emails-again-this-time-with-anthony-weiner.html?ref=opinion