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James Comey Reopens Clinton Email Investigation: Charges Coming?

By Aric Mitchell
Published on: 06:24 PST, Oct 28, 2016

James Comey became a household name for his involvement in the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation. Some praised him for making the case that the Democratic nominee was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified materials while serving as secretary of state. However, others hammered him for not pursuing criminal charges. Most of those critics were right-of-center.

On the left, there was a “see, we told you so” approach that seemed to clear James Comey from criticism even as it ignored the fact that Clinton’s email server was “a mistake” at best.

Following Comey’s speech on the Clinton emails, he faced heavy scrutiny from the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives. Some even-keeled policy geeks like Richard Epstein of the Libertarian podcast have even weighed in, stating that from Comey’s own verbiage, he had the grounds to pursue charges against Clinton and that it was a mistake for not having done so.

Now it appears that James Comey will be giving the Hillary Clinton emails another look after sending a letter to House committees — reported by multiple outlets on Friday, October 28, to the point that “James Comey” even became a top 10 Twitter trend — stating that new findings have come about showing a need to revisit the issue of Clinton’s private server.

The move set off excitement on the right on Friday, but when breaking down the language that James Comey uses in the letter, it may be too soon to be hopeful if you’re a Republican hoping to avoid a Hillary presidency.

That’s because Comey says the decision is “[i]n relation to an unrelated case” and that the only purpose is to “allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

Nowhere in the letter does James Comey speculate that the issue is related to some of the recent emails from Wikileaks in which it was revealed that Clinton backers ran a “Bill Clinton Inc” pay-to-play deal that simultaneously secured donations to the Clinton Foundation while personally enriching the former President.

The Atlantic has an in-depth piece on Bill Clinton Inc at this link if you need to be caught up.

Comey told House officials in his closer, “Although the FBI cannot assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete the additional work, I believe it is important to update your Committee about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.”

Essentially, the FBI is not going back to revisit the emails that they have already investigated. This would be a new crop of emails and likely — when work-related — similar to the previous investigation.

Trump supporters — or anti-Clinton voters — who read between the lines are already taking this last paragraph of the James Comey letter to mean that either the FBI will once again clear Clinton of criminal activity or arrive at a conclusion long after November 8.

Even if that is not the case — and this will depend on the number and condition of the emails — a conclusion one or two days ahead of the election would likely have little effect on the final outcome as many voters do not plug into the headlines for several days.

But what do you think, readers? Is this new letter from James Comey a mere formality, or is the FBI moving closer to bringing charges against Hillary Clinton? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by Rich Girard/Flickr Creative Commons/Resized and Cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0]

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