Hillary Clinton's Emails, Explained

From Cosmopolitan

The political world convulsed on Friday. Seemingly out of nowhere, the FBI lurched into the 2016 presidential election, a truly historic development that dragged Hillary Clinton’s emails - not to mention Anthony Weiner - firmly into the spotlight with less than two weeks to go until Election Day. So what does it all mean? Here’s what you need to know.

So what exactly happened on Friday?

James Comey, the director of the FBI, sent a vaguely worded letter to Congress, saying the bureau had discovered information related to its previous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The information, according to Comey’s letter, came from a separate investigation.

In other words, agents discovered emails that might have come from Clinton’s private email server. The FBI is not, as some reports suggested, reopening its investigation into Clinton’s emails - at least not yet. Instead, agents plan to review those emails.

Let’s back up for a moment. What’s the deal with Clinton’s emails?

Shortly before Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, she set up a private email server in her home. She also created accounts on that server for her close aides, including Huma Abedin.

Her use of this private email server fell into a “grey area," according to the BBC, because the State Department enacted new rules after she became secretary of state saying government employees can use private email only if federal records were preserved. Basically, if Clinton is discussing plans for her granddaughter’s birthday party, the government doesn’t need to know about it. If, however, she’s discussing a diplomatic mission to China on that server, then those records need to be kept.

Clinton maintained that she followed this rule because, as the BBC points out, most of her emails from that private server were sent or forwarded to people with official government accounts. Officials prior to Clinton, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, also used private email.

In March 2015, The New York Times broke the story that Clinton may have violated State Department rules because she didn’t take appropriate steps to preserve her government emails. This report ignited the firestorm over her emails even before her presidential campaign began. Clinton handed over 30,000 emails, which was 55,000 pages, for review, according to ABC News.

In May 2016, the State Department put out a report criticizing Clinton’s use of a private email server, noting that Clinton had not - as she had earlier suggested - sought or gotten approval from the department to use it, according to The New York Times. The report also noted that although other officials had used private email, the practice was neither allowed nor encouraged by the time Clinton became secretary of state.

This violation is not a criminal act, but instead runs afoul of administrative rules at the State Department, the BBC reports.

Why is the FBI involved?

The FBI conducted a separate investigation over whether Clinton and her aides mishandled information related to national security, according to the New York Times. In other words, was any of the information in those emails classified, and, if so, did Clinton knowingly send and receive it on her private email server? Federal law makes it a crime to "knowingly remove" documents or materials containing classified information and store them, without permission at an "unauthorized location," the Times reports.

On July 5, Comey said the FBI had wrapped up its investigation and found that “there is evidence of potential violations” related to classified information, but “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," according to the BBC. The FBI recommended no charges be brought against Clinton and her staff, referring the matter to the Justice Department, which said it would go along with the FBI’s recommendation. Justice then closed the case.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch faced criticism from conservatives, however, because she and Bill Clinton met privately on her plane in June, just weeks before the FBI’s investigation wrapped up. According to CNN, both Lynch’s and Clinton’s planes were on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor Intentional Airport, where the former president walked onto the plane. The meeting was not planned.

Lynch said it was primarily a social meeting, but even Democrats agreed it looked bad for the person who could bring criminal charges against Clinton meeting with her husband while the investigation was ongoing, according to Politico.

What about the deleted emails Trump is always talking about?

A constant line of attack from Trump has been the 30,000 or so emails Clinton deleted. "Why did she delete 33,000 emails?" he asked during their first debate. Earlier, he called on Russian hackers to find those emails.

Here’s the backstory.

When Clinton handed over her emails to the State Department for review, according to ABC News, her staff found that there were about 60,000 left on her private server. Clinton told her staff to determine which were work related and which were personal. They decided about half were personal and deleted them.

"They had nothing to do with work," Clinton told reporters in 2015. "I didn’t see any reason to keep them ... no one wants their personal emails made public, and I think most people understand that and respect that privacy."

The FBI, however, recovered about 17,000 emails that had been deleted or not turned over to the State Department and determined some of them were, in fact, work related.

In his testimony before Congress in July, Comey stressed that the FBI "didn’t find any evidence of evil intent and intent to obstruct justice."

Now, back to Friday’s bombshell - and the connection to Anthony Weiner.

Shortly after Comey’s letter became public on Friday, news reports emerged saying the unrelated investigation that turned up the Clinton emails involved disgraced New York congressman Anthony Weiner. He is married to Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin, although the two are currently estranged.

The FBI is investigating whether Weiner sent and received sexually explicit text messages with a North Carolina teenager. On October 3, agents seized Weiner’s electronic devices, including a laptop he shares with Abedin. While searching the laptop, agents discovered emails “similar to the ones that had been examined in the Clinton investigation,” according to the New York Times.

Last week, Comey decided the FBI should look at those emails to determine whether they contain classified information. But the FBI doesn’t know what is actually in those emails because, on Friday, it hadn’t yet looked at them. It’s highly unlikely the review of the newly discovered information will conclude by Election Day, according to CNN.

The FBI getting involved like this, at this time, is a really big deal.

The Justice Department learned last Thursday that Comey planned to send the letter to Congress, and it urged him to stay silent, according to the Washington Post. Officials at the Justice Department “reminded the FBI of the department’s policy to not comment on ongoing investigations and to not take steps that could be viewed as influencing an election,” the Post reported. But Comey went ahead anyway.

The letter has exposed a deep divide at the FBI, according to The Wall Street Journal, with some staff questioning why Comey - a Republican, according the Washington Post - would get involved in a U.S. election.

What’s the reaction?

Donald Trump, who had previously criticized the FBI for its handling of the Clinton investigation, praised the letter, saying on Friday that he has “great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” according to ABC News.

Clinton, meanwhile, called on the FBI to release as much information as possible about the newly discovered information. She also criticized Comey’s decision to send the letter. “It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” Mrs. Clinton said at a rally over the weekend. “In fact, it’s not just strange; it’s unprecedented and it is deeply troubling.”

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, suggested Comey violated federal law by getting involved in a U.S. election. And former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under President Obama, said in a Washington Post op-ed Monday that he was "deeply concerned" by Comey’s decision. "That decision was incorrect," he wrote. "It violated long-standing Justice Department policies and tradition."

But it’s not an entirely partisan fight. One of Clinton’s staunchest critics, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, even took her side in the debate, tweeting:

How will this affect the election?

It’s unclear. Polling over the weekend showed it had no effect, with Clinton maintaining a slim 3 percent point lead over Trump nationally. But, as the New York Times points out, weekend polls are not always reliable.

One thing to note: Millions of people have already voted in crucial battleground states like Florida, Colorado, and Nevada. And, considering how long this election has gone on, millions more have already decided how they’ll vote on Nov. 8.

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