FBI's Conclusion Regarding Hillary Clinton Email Use Remains Unchanged

In the final October surprise of the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey threw a twist into the presidential race by announcing the bureau was once again looking into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. And then, with just two days to go before the election, he essentially told Congress, never mind. In a new letter to Congressional leaders Sunday, Comey said that nothing has changed since July when he announced that he would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton to the Department of Justice.

"Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation," Comey wrote. "During that process, we received all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State."

In the letter, Comey wrote that based on the FBI's review, the agency has not changed the conclusions it expressed in July, when the director said that while Clinton had been "extremely careless," no reasonable prosecutor would bring criminal charges.

On the Friday before Halloween, Comey shook the already contentious presidential race when he told members of Congress that the bureau was looking into new emails that it found in an unrelated probe that may be pertinent to Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state.

Those emails were later revealed to be found on a computer shared by disgraced former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife Huma Abedin, one of Clinton's closest aides and confidants. The emails were reportedly found when the FBI was investigating Weiner for sexting with a minor. In the original letter, Comey said the FBI did not know how long the review of the new emails would take, and the general consensus was that the results of the review would come after the election.

The FBI director's decision to tell members of Congress this close to Election Day raised eyebrows among Republicans and Democrats alike. As a result, Comey found himself at the intersection of an intense debate about whether his actions had been appropriate.

Department of Justice officials had reportedly told Comey it was against department policy to inform members of Congress about the new emails this close to an election. For his part, Comey told FBI employees that he had to inform members of Congress about the new emails since he had testified in front of Congress regarding the investigation.

Speaking to reporters on Clinton's plane, campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said the campaign was glad that the matter had been "resolved."

Trump's campaign has only briefly touched upon the news. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted that if the decision remains unchanged, it still means Clinton was reckless and careless and lied about classified information and the number of devices.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan issued the following statement:

While this is good news for the Clinton campaign, there is concern that it might be too little too late with early voting already in place in several states and the news coming less than 48 hours before election day.

Clinton did not address the news at a rally in Cleveland where she appeared alongside LeBron James.

When the news came out, Trump was speaking at a rally in Minneapolis, where he did not address the news either. Trump used the news in his favor to fuel his supporters and build on the rhetoric that Clinton was a corrupt politician, going so far as to say that the scandal was "worse than Watergate."

Speaking on CNN, Jason Miller, senior communications adviser for the Trump campaign, said that as far as the campaign is concerned, nothing has changed and that the FBI was wrong in its July decision and is wrong now.

While the new emails did not change the facts, Comey's Oct. 28 letter created fervor and anxiety in the election and solidified Comey's unusual role in the election starting from when he decided to hold a press conference to announce he would not be recommending charges against Clinton.

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Image via Tim Pierce, Flickr, used under Creative Commons