Senior FBI officials were told of new emails in early October

It is unclear what FBI agents have learned since discovering the emails in early October. But officials say they gained enough information from the email metadata to take the next step, seeking a warrant to review the actual emails. That legal step prompted Comey’s letter to Congress, which has made him a central figure during the stretch run of the presidential campaign.

“He needed to make an informed decision, knowing that once he made that decision, he was taking it to another level,” an official with knowledge of the decision-making process said.

Law enforcement officials on Oct. 3 seized the computer belonging to Weiner, who was under investigation for allegedly sending suggestive online messages to a teenage girl. As they examined his computer, investigators quickly stumbled on emails tied to Abedin. She and Weiner separated in August. Abedin, like Clinton, used an email address that was routed through Clinton’s private server.

Soon after the investigators found the new trove of thousands of emails, they notified the separate team of FBI agents in Washington that worked on the probe into Clinton’s private email server, officials said. Comey said in July that the investigation was complete and that he would recommend to prosecutors that no charges be brought.

After the agents on the Clinton case were notified in early October about the newly discovered emails, they in turn told FBI leaders about them.

At that point, the leaders did not believe they had enough information to make a decision about what to do next, officials said.

The senior FBI officials instructed the agents to do everything they could within legal limits to determine the relevance of the new emails, one official said. That review, including a closer examination of the email metadata, was an attempt to figure out the scope and volume of what the agents had found.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

In notifying lawmakers on Friday about the new investigative steps, Comey said he had been “briefed” about the newly discovered emails a day earlier but did not mention that he had first heard about them before that. The news media has widely reported that Comey was first told about the emails last week.

A formal briefing for Comey with the investigative team was held Oct. 27 at FBI headquarters. At that point, Comey was given a complete presentation of everything the team knew about the trove.

“It was a combination of assessments by the investigative team as to what it might be,” the official said.

Much was unknown about the contents and relevance of the thousands of emails. How many were to or from Clinton? Did any contain classified information? How many were duplicates of material the FBI had already reviewed? Was any of this significant to the Clinton email investigation that had been completed?

“At that point, there was no way for Comey to know if the [Clinton investigators] had already seen the emails before or if they were new, old or different,” an official said. “All of that was just unknown.”

But Comey and others felt there was enough information at that point to pursue a warrant, which would permit the investigators on the Clinton case to read the emails, officials said. They could not read them without legal permission because the emails had been discovered in the separate criminal probe involving Weiner.

When Comey and the officials decided to seek a warrant, they knew that would involve more people, both at the FBI and the Justice Department. Comey was concerned that the explosive information that they had to renew the Clinton investigation would leak out.

“It could not be done in secret,” an official with knowledge of the investigation said. “It’s a volatile subject and a major topic in the presidential campaign.”

But the overriding factor in Comey’s decision was that he felt he had to tell Congress what he was doing because he had testified under oath this past summer and “told Congress and the world” that the Clinton email investigation was complete, and now that was no longer true, an official said.

Then, Comey had to figure out what to say to lawmakers, when he knew so little. He wanted the letter to be accurate and “circumspect,” the official said.

“He wanted it to be carefully, thoughtfully done and say no more than his investigators knew,” the official said.

After the formal briefing, staffers in Comey’s office contacted senior officials at the Justice Department to notify them about the director’s decision. The next day, Comey sent his letter.

Two officials familiar with the case said it is unclear whether investigators will be able to conclude their review of the new emails before the election.

President Obama addressed the controversy in an interview posted Wednesday by NowThisNews, saying, “I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations we don’t operate on innuendo, and we don’t operate on incomplete information, and we don’t operate on leaks.”

“When this was investigated thoroughly last time the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was she had made some mistakes but that there wasn’t anything there that was prosecutable,” Obama said.

TL;DR

>>81691

>>81690
Just read this post the rest is a summary of what the FBI has been doing since early October.

>>81694
I lol that Loretta Lynch already pleaded the fifth on the emails

so she can't even make judgement calls on the case

nor testify against Comey, or really have an opinion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDct5MkZv2s

Apparently the wiki leaks email from Clinton contain reference to more undisclosed emails .
Not all emails were released to the public in March 2015, according to a message to political consultant Jim Margolis from Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson.

“If there is a release of the 55K, are there others that are not being released?” Margolis asks, to which Benenson replies “Definitely”.
https://www.rt.com/usa/365219-podesta-emails-clinton-wikileaks/

>>81782
Man I am so mad I was a Bernie supporter and Clinton cheated.. I am so mad...... my anger will out last the heat death of the universe.
I hate Clinton more then trump. Trump might be an ass but he didn't rig his primaries.