Reports: Weiner-Abedin computer may have thousands of pertinent emails
As the Hillary email-Weiner sexting scandals and investigations unfold, we are learning that there are thousands of emails that the FBI believes to be work-related correspondence between Hillary and Huma Abedin.
Abedin is saying she has no idea how those emails got on the co-owned computer, and considering that saying otherwise would reveal a crime (i.e. perjury and/or lying to the FBI—the latter is how Martha Stewart earned her stay at Club Fed), that is not surprising.
Comey stated in his letter to Congress that the investigative team working on the Weiner sexting case briefed him on the emails they found to and from Hillary.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear pertinent to the investigation,” Comey wrote the chairmen. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
What those agents said to Comey about the emails in this briefing is not known, but it seems unlikely he’d have sent that letter to Congress if he didn’t think there was a there there. Perhaps it was just the sheer volume of the Hillary-Abedin work-related emails found that prompted the investigative team to brief Comey and/or prompted Comey to act, we just don’t know at this point.
What is known is that there are thousands of such emails.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Federal agents are preparing to scour roughly 650,000 emails contained on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner to see how many relate to a prior probe of Hillary Clinton’s email use, as metadata on the device suggests there may be thousands sent to or from the private server that the Democratic nominee used while she was secretary of state, according to people familiar with the matter.The review will take weeks at a minimum to determine whether those messages are work-related emails between Huma Abedin, a close Clinton aide and the estranged wife of Mr. Weiner, and State Department officials; how many are duplicates of emails already reviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and whether they include either classified information or important new evidence in the Clinton email probe, which FBI officials call “Midyear.”The FBI has had to await a court order to begin reviewing the emails, because they were uncovered in an unrelated probe of Mr. Weiner, and that order was delayed for reasons that remain unclear.
The emails were found on a previously unknown (to agents in the Hillary email investigation) computer used by Weiner and found by the FBI as they searched the computer for child pornography.
The Wall Street Journal continues:
The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a minor, they had recovered a laptop with 650,000 emails. Many, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that both Mr. Weiner and Ms. Abedin used and that hadn’t previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August that the couple were separating.The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn’t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the teenager.In their initial review of the laptop, the metadata showed many messages, apparently in the thousands, that were either sent to or from the private email server at Mrs. Clinton’s home that had been the focus of so much investigative effort for the FBI. Senior FBI officials decided to let the Weiner investigators proceed with a closer examination of the metadata on the computer, and report back to them.
It was McCabe–yes, that McCabe–who told the Hillary email investigation team to speak with the Weiner investigative team to determine if the emails might be relevant to their own investigation. The two teams determined that the emails were “potentially” relevant; it is not known, however, in what way or ways they are potentially relevant.
Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday. . . .
The Washington Post is reporting that the agents on the ground knew “weeks” before briefing Comey about the emails. The above process probably took weeks to accomplish and to work its way up the chain, so unless something nefarious is revealed about the “weeks” it took to get to Comey, it’s unlikely to be remarkable.
What is remarkable is that the Justice Department appears to be blocking the FBI’s access to the Hillary emails on the Weiner-Abedin computer.
The Justice Department has yet to allow the FBI access through a warrant to any of the newly discovered Huma Abedin emails, Yahoo News reported Saturday night. But that may not mean other law enforcement agencies in communication with the FBI did not have access to the new material.“We do not have a warrant,” a senior law enforcement official said. “Discussions are under way [between the FBI and the Justice Department] as to the best way to move forward.”
Speculation now abounds about the status of the Hillary email search as there is no warrant as yet issued—apparently blocked by Justice—and about whether or not Weiner gave the FBI permission to review the laptop beyond the scope of their initial search.
Watch:
Chris Wallace says in the above segment:
And the news is breaking while we’re on the air. Our colleague Bret Baier has just sent us an e-mail saying he has two sources who say that Anthony Weiner, who also had co-ownership of that laptop with his estranged wife Huma Abedin, is cooperating with the FBI investigation, had given them the laptop, so therefore they didn’t need a warrant to get in to see the contents of said laptop. Pretty interesting development.
Meanwhile, Huma has lawyered-up. I’d say Hillary should, too, but with Loretta Lynch and the full power of the DOJ protecting her, what’s the point?
UPDATE:
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