Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has changed his tune about the integrity of the FBI investigation of the private email server that Hillary Clinton maintained while Secretary of State.
After Bureau Director James Comey revealed late last week that emails uncovered in a separate inquiry have caused federal agents to revisit Clinton’s email system, Reid questioned Comey’s own compliance with the law.
The top Democratic lawmaker told the FBI Director that his decision to announce further probing of the email issue “may violate the Hatch Act,” in a letter accusing Comey of harboring “a clear intent to aid one political party over another.”
“Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” Reid said. The statute prevents non-elected federal officials from taking part in electioneering.
After Comey had exonerated Clinton in July, Reid wanted nothing to do with questions about the FBI’s intent.
“The Republicans are in such desperate shape because of Trump they will seize on anything,” he said last summer. “It’s over. It’s time to move on.”
Reid then called Comey “a fair, impartial director of the FBI.”
The twist in the Clinton email server probe came late last week, after it was revealed that federal agents discovered potentially pertinent messages, on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner.
The estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin is being investigated over allegations he had a sexual relationship online with a minor. The FBI on Monday obtained a search warrant to view the content of the emails.
It isn’t out of the ordinary for the FBI to renew investigations. In 2013, for example, the Bureau decided to reopen its inquiry into of a 1964 Chicago kidnapping, after new DNA evidence emerged. In 2014, the bureau reopened a 1975 case involving art stolen from an Amherst College museum.
