FBI reportedly found new Huma Abedin emails on Anthony Weiner laptop

Hackers have a plan of their own for Election Day.

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published 4 November 2016

FBI officials have been searching through Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin's emails "under the tightest secrecy by a team at Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters in Washington," Reuters reported late Thursday, citing law enforcement sources. Two of those sources said it's unlikely that the FBI will make any more public disclosures about those emails, discovered on estranged husband Anthony Weiner's laptop in a separate investigation, before Tuesday's election, but the FBI has been particularly leak-prone in the week since FBI Director Comey informed Congress that agents had discovered emails potentially linked to the investigation of Clinton's private email server.

A U.S. official told CBS News' Andres Triay on Thursday that the FBI has found emails related to Clinton's tenure as secretary of state on the laptop and that they are not duplicates of the ones found on Clinton's server, where Abedin also had an email account. "At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI's investigation into Clinton," CBS News reports. "It is also not known how many relevant emails there are."

A big question is whether any of the new emails are from Clinton or contain classified information. "Law enforcement officials say finding new classified information would not by itself change the outcome," The New York Times reports. "Prosecutors would still need to prove that Mrs. Clinton or her aides intentionally mishandled classified information." The Times also shed some light on the three-week gap between the discovery of Abedin's emails and Comey's vague announcement. "The FBI needed custom software to allow them to read Mr. Weiner's emails without viewing hers," The Times reports. "But building that program took two weeks, causing the delay."

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Comey has faced a lot of blowback for both holding a press conference on the email investigation in July and sending his letter to Congress 11 days before the election. He was reportedly worried about a leak from restive FBI agents, and while he has his defenders and they "say a lot," The Times says, "there are not many of them."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.