FBI stands by decision not to charge Clinton after review of additional emails

FBI Director James Comey delivered his second shock to the presidential campaign Sunday by announcing that there would not be any charges involving the newly found ­e-mails tied to Hillary Clinton.

 In a letter sent to congressional leaders two days before Tuesday’s election, Comey said his agents had “been working around-the-clock to process and review [the] large volume of ­e-mails,” the discovery of which he revealed just nine days earlier

“During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state,” he wrote.

“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton,” said Comey, who in July called her handling of the ­e-mails “extremely careless’’ but not criminal at the time.

Donald Trump has surged in the polls since Comey’s Oct. 28 revelation of the new e-mails, many of which were believed to have been sent to or from Clinton’s private server while she was secretary of state.

The Republican candidate hailed Comey’s original letter about the newly found e-mails — but yesterday, he blasted the FBI chief, saying he did not do a thorough enough probe.

“Right now, she is being protected by a rigged system,” Trump told a raucous crowd in a suburb of Detroit.

“You can’t review 650,000 new e-mails in eight days. You can’t do it, folks. Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it. The FBI knows it.”

Nearly all of the new e-mails — which were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin — are duplicates of messages the FBI reviewed while investigating Clinton’s use of the server, NBC News reported.

Some contain classified information, but they do not change the total number of classified documents found by the feds, a senior law-enforcement official told NBC.

Others hadn’t been seen previously by the FBI, but they didn’t involve government business, the official said.

Authorities seized the computer as part of an investigation into a report that Weiner had engaged in explicit sexual communications with an underage girl.

Trump supporters, like their man, blasted Comey’s announcement Sunday.

“Comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he cant possibly know,” tweeted former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said it was unclear if the feds “sought to determine if Secretary Clinton and her aides deliberately maneuvered around federal open-records laws or congressional investigations.”

“Another vague announcement by the FBI has again failed to provide this context,” he said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Comey’s decision didn’t change “the undisputed finding . . . that Secretary Clinton put our nation’s secrets at risk, and in doing so compromised our national security.”

Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, emphasized the criticism that Comey leveled at Clinton in July.

“If FBI conclusions remain unchanged, that means she still was reckless & careless, still lied about classified info, lied re: # of devices,” she tweeted.

Although Clinton did not talk about the good news for her at campaign stops Sunday, her camp said the finding decision came as no surprise.

“Trump’s hopes of using Comey to distract the voters in closing days of the campaign just went up in smoke,” campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted.

Clinton senior strategist Joel Benenson tweeted, “Comey announcement means it’s time for media to stop listening to crap Rudy Giuliani peddles from his bogus FBI sources.”

http://nypost.com/2016/11/06/fbi-stands-by-decision-not-to-charge-clinton-after-review-of-additional-emails/