In a shocking twist of events, the FBI announced Friday that it will continue to investigate Hillary Clinton's emails, based on new emails discovered during an investigation into Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin.
According to the New York Times, the emails were uncovered when an FBI investigative team was looking into illicit text messages sent between Weiner and a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina. James B. Comey, the director of the FBI, issued a letter to Congress noting that the new emails "appear to be pertinent to the investigation."
News of the inquiry into newly discovered emails comes as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and several members of the GOP have been critical of the FBI's handling of the reported email scandal involving Clinton and the alleged use of a private server.
In the letter, viewed by the Times, Comey states that the FBI is taking steps to "determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation." He added that there was no timetable as to when the inquiry would be complete and that he had no idea whether the new emails contained information pertinent to the initial investigation.
Trump pounced on the opportunity to drag his Democratic opponent over the coals during a rally in New Hampshire.
"Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office," Trump said among cheers of "Lock her up," the Times reports.
"I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the DOJ are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made," Trump said, referring also to the Department of Justice. "This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected."
John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton presidential campaign, issued a statement indicating that the FBI director didn't provide enough information for the public to fully grasp what's taking place. Podesta also added that Comey's letter sounded as if he was reopening the case, which isn't happening.
"Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call," Podesta's statement reads.
"In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen," Podesta continued. "Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is 'reopening' an investigation, but Comey’s words do not match that characterization. Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that came to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the director himself notes they may not even be significant."
Read more at the New York Times.