Democrat leader accuses FBI chief of acting illegally over Hillary Clinton’s email probe and sitting on ‘explosive information’ about Donald Trump’s ‘close ties with Russia’
A TOP Democrat has blasted the head of the FBI for pursuing emails linked to an investigation into US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton -- claiming that he is sitting on 'explosive' information on Donald Trump's alleged links with Russia.
In a scathing letter Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, told FBI director James Comey he could be breaking the law by potentially influencing the election.
Comey announced to Congress last week that the FBI was opening a probe into emails found on the laptop of disgraced sex snap congressman Anthony Weiner -- the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
The former New York representative is being investigated for allegedly sending lurid messaged to a 15-year-old girl.
But cops scouring his devices have reportedly found 650,000 messages Comey said may be "pertinent" to an earlier investigation into Clinton's use of private emails for her work as Secretary of State, which had been concluded in July.
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FBI chief Comey's "rush to publicise" the email discovery just two weeks before the election has been deliberately "partisan", Reid said.
It could breach the Hatch Act, which prohibits public officials from trying to influence a vote.
In his letter to Comey, a Republican, Reid alleged he was purposely sitting on damning information about Trump.
"In my communication with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government - a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity", Reid wrote.
"The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it."
"And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information".
Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort stood down from the role over revelations he was doing business with ousted Ukrainian president and close Putin ally Viktor Yanukovych.
reported that Carter Page, a former adviser to the Republican candidate, also allegedly visited two Kremlin officials to set up ties between Trump and Putin.
It is also widely believed that Russia's cyber warfare machine is behind recent hacks of Democratic Party servers.
On Sunday, 100 former federal prosecutors signed an open letter from the Clinton campaign criticising Comey for telling Congress about the email discovery during the Weiner probe.
It is thought the huge tranche of documents will take much longer than the two weeks running up to the election to fully investigate.
What's the deal with Hillary Clinton's emails?
Shortly before she was sworn in as secretary of state in 2009, Hillary Clinton set up an email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York.
She then relied on this server, home to the email address [email protected], for all her electronic correspondence - both work-related and personal - during her four years in office.
She also reportedly set up email addresses on the server for her long-time aide, Huma Abedin, and State Department Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills.
She did not use, or even activate, a state.gov email account, which would have been hosted on servers owned and managed by the US government.
Mrs Clinton's email system became a national story the first week of March 2015, when the New York Times ran a front-page article on the subject.
The article said that the system "may have violated federal requirements" and was "alarming" to current and former government archive officials.
According to Mrs Clinton, the primary reason she set up her own email was for "convenience".
During a press conference at the UN, she said that she preferred to carry only one smartphone with one email address, rather than have two devices - one for work and one for personal affairs.
Source BBC
The latest twist could seriously impact on Clinton's chances of winning the Presidential race. A shocking poll yesterday showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by just TWO points in the race to be US president, inside the margin of error.
The same Washington Post/ABC poll had Clinton enjoying a huge 12-point lead just one week ago.
A further two polls have revealed Republican rival Donald Trump's popularity may be blossoming in the swing state of Florida, The
A New York Times Upshot/Siena poll released on Sunday had the GOP nominee up four points in Florida in a four-way race, 46 percent to 42 percent.
All the new polls were conducted before FBI director James Comey dropped his emails bombshell on Friday.
Mr Trump declared at a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday: "Corruption is corrosive to the soul of a Democracy, and it must be stopped. We have one ultimate check on Hillary’s corruption, and that is the power of voting.
"The only way to beat the corruption is to show up and vote by the tens of millions, including millions of people voting for the first time in their entire lives."
Mrs Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, said the FBI director’s handling of the matter was “inappropriate”.
He also urged Mr Comey to be more transparent because the disclosure came “in the middle of the presidential campaign so close to the voting”.
The first sign of Mr Trump closing the gap with his Democratic rival in the Sunshine State came in the middle of last week, when a Bloomberg News poll gave him his first lead there for several weeks.
Sunday also saw the release of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll that had them essentially tied in Florida with Ms Clinton at 45 per cent and Mr Trump at 44 per cent.
Clinton was campaigning in Miami this weekend, joining Jennifer Lopez on stage at a concert held in support of her campaign.
Responding to the FBI probe, she said she would not be ";knocked off course".
"I'm not stopping now, we're just getting warmed up," she told the crowd in the city of Wilton Manors.
"We're not going to be distracted, no matter what our opponents throw at us."
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