The FBI’s review of emails that were found on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner has yielded no evidence against Hillary Clinton, the agency’s director told U.S. Congress on Sunday, just days before the election.
“We reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State,” FBI Director James Comey told members of Congress in a brief letter. “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”
Other details about the review were not immediately available from Comey’s letter, but NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams cited sources as saying that nearly all of the recently-discovered emails were either personal or duplicates of the ones the FBI already had.
There was no immediate word from Clinton herself, but spokespersons for her campaign welcomed the news. “We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited. Now Director Comey has confirmed it,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said.
Comey shook up the election on October 28 when he announced that emails were found that could be relevant to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she worked as secretary of state.
The emails were discovered during a probe into ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide. Comey’s announcement last month was condemned by Democrats who criticized him for releasing a vague statement when the agency had not even seen any of the emails.
In July of this year, Comey announced at a press conference that the agency had concluded that no criminal charges should be brought against Clinton, despite what he called “extremely careless” handling of work emails during her tenure as secretary of state.
Comey confirmed that classified information was sent and received through private email servers and that Clinton failed to turn over all work-related emails, but he said that investigators found no evidence to indicate that Clinton or her team had the intention to violate laws in regards to record-keeping and the handling of classified information.
As such, with evidence of intent being required to bring criminal charges, the FBI recommended that no criminal charges be brought in connection with the investigation. The U.S. Justice Department agreed with the decision, after which the investigation was closed.
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