went live at 10:19 PM EDT at Newsweek, and is titled Hillary Clinton's Emails: The Real Reason the FBI Is Reviewing More of Them.
Here’s the opening paragraph, in which I have Bolded what I consider the key information:
The disclosure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation late on Friday, October 28 that it had discovered potential new evidence in its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of her personal email when she was Secretary of State has virtually nothing to do with any actions taken by the Democratic nominee, according to government records and an official with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity.
Later on Eichenwald adds
There is no indication the emails in question were withheld by Clinton during the investigation, the law enforcement official told Newsweek, nor does the discovery suggest she did anything illegal. Moreover, despite the widespread claims in the media that this development had prompted the FBI to “reopen” of the case, it did not; such investigations are never actually closed, and it is common for law enforcement to discover new information that needs to be examined.
It is worth noting that on Twitter this afternoon Eichenwald was telling people he had written about the FBI for decades and that this story was being overblown.
Eichenwald provides a detailed explanation of the mechanism that was involved with Huma Abedin forwarding what were UNCLASSIFIED documents from a State Department account to a personal account so that she could print them out, as Secretary Clinton preferred to read on hard copy.
Abedin printed a large number of emails this way, in part because, investigative records show, other staff members considered her Clinton’s “gatekeeper” and often sent Abedin electronic communications they wanted the Secretary to see.
So what was printed was both what Clinton sent her to print and what others sent her to give to Clinton.
Abedin, like many State Department officials, found the government network technology to be cumbersome, and she had great trouble printing documents there, investigative records show.
To note, the items forwarded were from an UNCLASSIFIED State Department email account.
Eichenwald has a good deal more on some of the mechanisms and issues that could be involved.
At the conclusion of his piece, Eichenwald offers the following:
According to a letter Comey sent to the chairs of several Congressional committee on Friday, he learned of these new emails on Thursday, October 27.
His decision to immediately reveal this discovery was not a partisan act. He was obligated to do so because of a previous statement he had made to Congress. In September, he testified that the bureau had completed its review of the evidence in the case and found no crimes had been committed. With the discovery of the information on the laptop shared by Weiner and Abedin, that sworn statement was no longer true, and there was new evidence that needed to be examined. As a result, Comey was obligated to inform the committees as quickly as possible that his previous statement was now incorrect.
While that may be true, what Eichenwald does not address is that the letter Comey sent was not as clear about the probably totally innocent nature of this material. That failure is on him.
The far greater failure is on the media that went live with the story on a breaking news basis before checking with sources at the FBI and Justice, which quickly made clear that this was not really a major issue, nor did it mean as Jason Chaffetz tried to portray it that the FBI was reopening the investigation because of the possibility that there might be something really serious here.
UPDATE 11:57 Eichenwald has now updated his piece including the text of the letter Comey sent to the FBI staff, and now ending with this paragraph:
Unfortunately, by trying to have things both ways – revealing the change in circumstances while remaining vague about what the agents know – Comey has created that misleading impression that could change the outcome of a presidential election, an act that, if uncorrected, will undoubtedly go down as one of the darkest moments in the bureau’s history.
I suppose given the brouhaha that has ensued this evening, people are wondering if Comey will at least himself make a public statement that none of the emails were to or from Clinton, and thus as of now there is no evidence involving her in what the FBI is now examining.
