"FBI obtains search warrant ... " Washpost

"The FBI has obtained a warrant to search the emails found on a computer used by former Congressman Anthony Weiner that may contain evidence relevant to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, according to law enforcement officials.

One official said the total number of emails recovered in the Weiner investigation is close to 650,000 — though that reflects many emails that are not in any way relevant to the Clinton investigation. Officials familiar with the case said, though, the messages include a significant amount of correspondence associated with Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s estranged wife.

The agents investigating Clinton’s use of a private email server knew early this month that messages recovered in a separate probe might be germane to their case, but they waited weeks before briefing the FBI director, according to people familiar with the case.

FBI Director James B. Comey has written that he was informed of the development Thursday, and he sent a letter to legislators the next day letting them know that he thought the team should take “appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails.”"  Washpost

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 "the messages include a significant amount of correspondence associated with Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin, "

I wonder from whom they obtained a warrant.  This could be the crack of doom.  I imagine that they will mine out the e-mails from/to Hillaryworld and look at them.  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-agents-knew-of-clinton-related-emails-weeks-before-director-was-briefed/2016/10/30/657ed266-9eb1-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html

Comments

[steve]

Spousal immunity varies from state to state. Even in federal cases, the scope of immunity varies according to the applicable state law iirc.

No doubt Abedin's and Weiner's attorneys have done their research--separately of course.

[steve]

Pols at Obama's level are certainly calculating if nothing else. I doubt if Obama weighs in on the matter at all--certainly nothing in the way of bashing Comey, much less a pardon of Hillary. He's far too smart and again, calculating, to do that.

[kooshy]

IMO if they didn’t had discovered/recovered an important new evidence Comey/Feds wouldn’t have dared at this stage of elections disrupt the campaign. We will wait and see. This 2016 elections ( dog and pony show) is unprsedented in anybody experience. In every which way I have seen.

[steve]

I note that Bush's former "ethics adviser" has weighed in by lodging a Hatch Act complaint against Comey.

Is this the guy who ethically advised Bush on torture or the illegal mass surveillance of the public?

Who knew that Bush had an ethics adviser?

[Bill Herschel]

Too much salivation in these comments, too little food. What would food consist of?

Just keep in mind how far, "I didn't have sex with the girl," got. The idea there was that what mattered was whether he lied, not sex. I think we've already accepted that the emails didn't contain launch codes, so their contents is not really on the table. It's whether there was perjury.

So you have to prove perjury. And you have to do it in a short period of time ex parte. The risk to the Republican Party, already a train wreck, is very, very great.

And all the while, no one mentions $500 billion for "defense", heroin flowing from Afghanistan into the veins of American youth and destroying them, and the destruction of country after country by American aggression. All of which, can be laid at the door of Hillary Clinton and no where near as successfully at Donald Trump's.

The problem is not Hillary Clinton. The problem is that Donald Trump is a moron. He had this thing for the taking. But he wasn't up to the task. By a long, long way. Too much pussy, too little brain.

[turcopolier]

Bill Herschel

"so their contents is not really on the table." Oh, come now! For you classified information transmitted improperly is not important unless they are nuclear launch codes? The next person who writes "pussy" on this blog will go to joining EA. pl

[turcopolier]

Bill Herschel

Having re-read the nasty political invective and insult contained in your last comment tell me why I should not ban you. What makes you think you have the right to insult people on SST? pl

[robt willmann]

Last Friday, 28 October, after the news that FBI Dir. James Comey sent his letter to Congress, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (1983-1988), Joseph diGenova, appeared on a WMAL630 radio show and talked about Comey's letter.

https://audioboom.com/posts/5219908-joe-digenova-on-fbi-reopening-hillary-investigation-on-the-drive-at-five?t=0

He was under the impression that the existence of e-mails relating to Hillary Clinton and her e-mail server was originally discovered on a phone of Weiner and/or Abedin. He does not mention a laptop computer. Current and former FBI agents talk to diGenova, so he might be correct. The first indication may have been on a cellular smartphone.

Another item of interest he relates is that the laptop computers of Hillary buddies Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, that were to be destroyed as part of the disgraceful "hip pocket" immunity agreements made with them during the earlier so-called investigation -- which would of course destroy potential evidence -- were not destroyed after all. FBI agents refused to destroy them. If true, I will guess that copies of the laptop hard drives were also quietly made and put here and there.

While U.S. Attorney, diGenova prosecuted Jonathan Pollard, the spy for Israel. After Comey made his bizarre public presentation on 5 July 2016 about Hillary and that no prosecution should occur, later that day diGenova was on a radio call-in program, and was so mad that he really cut loose and spoke his mind. It was pretty interesting to listen to.

If there are around 650,000 e-mails on the laptop, I wonder what the time frame is during which they were sent. A time period of five years would be about 356 per day. Maybe backups were made of multiple e-mail accounts elsewhere, or maybe of the Clinton e-mail server itself, and the backups were copied onto the laptop as storage or as insurance.

I read somewhere that in all the 39,500+ John Podesta e-mails that were leaked, none are to or from Hillary. If so, Wikileaks is segregating things and separating Hillary out. Are e-mails from her or to her going to be released by Wikileaks this week?

[apol]

Comey is Catholic , like you Sir, if I've understood correctly.
While the Borg doesn't hide it's affiliation could this be
Catholic/ WASP pushback from a source that is much 'bigger' than Comey?
Otherwise is she wins it's hard to imagine there will be another
'real' election in the future.
The question is rhetorical of course!!

[DC]

I'm waiting for the backstory of why Comey knew nothing of Weiner's laptop until last week (well, that's what the 'news" says) when his investigators in NY had it for weeks. Could there have been problems getting a warrant approval from DoJ? Did Comey ask for such approval before writing his letter to congress? In my mind, that letter would have been very useful as leverage against a reluctant DoJ.

Apparently Comey had a seriously difficult time getting warrants in the initial investigation, which is why he had to create all of those highly irregular immunity agreements in order to get access to evidence.

[Cee]

FND,

or could even be he was sharing them with Israeli intelligence out of Israeli patriotism or for money.

Could be.
She said she didn't know how they got there. I have often wondered about the marriage since she was accused of being a shill for the Muslim Brotherhood. Was his job to keep tabs on her and HRC?

Anyway, she should have used her own protected PC for anything work related.
I guess she wanted to have access to his so she could keep tabs on his perversion. She's lucky to be out of that marriage.

[steve]

Colonel, regarding your question as to what judge signed off on the warrant, I don't think it would be that difficult to obtain one from most judges, particularly if the magistrate hasn't previously been burned by the agent signing the affidavit. It's generally a routine matter but then again, this is hardly a routine investigation and no doubt Hillary gets "extra due process" protection. For the peons, I have known judges to not even read the warrant presented.

Not implying it happened in this case at all and I don't know that the feds do it, but local law enforcement frequently engages in judge-shopping.

[Tyler]

Bill,

Or the Turkish Government donating megabux to the Clintons.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36009

Just a big FYI for anyone who was using triple bankshot lawgic to convince themselves that no way no how was Clinton going to expand the war in Syria.

[Tyler]

steve,

He doesn't need to openly bash anyone. He just needs to withdraw his support, temperate as it has been, from Hillary, and let her hang herself. I think he knows the writing on the wall and that blacks aren't going to come out for a sick old woman like they did for him. Another flaw in the modeling methodology of the media is assuming that record minority turnout will hold.

Trump is winning 11%+ of blacks in Florida and NC apparently. For the record, Romney won 2%. Not that the black vote was super key this race, but Trump winning a bigger share of a declining pie just points towards a Trumpslide even more.

[johnA]

It is astounding to me when I see comments that openly pooh-pooh the security norms of the country.

If the divide has driven each side to that then I hope some will sit down and reflect of what they are after.

Where would one stop if each person setup and acted on his own security rules?

I am in favor of open info , probably in the extreme, but you have to stop and think of others and what you are going to let loose.

That there could be ANY thought of data at the SOS level being widde open is just impossible for me to understand.

I would and did fire people in private business who had a fiduciary duty to guard info and did not abide the rules they agreed to.

[kao_hsien_chih]

TTG,

I'm not sure if HRC will emerge this "bulletproof," but it seems clear that even if FBI does uncover something, it won't register on most of the public after all these. Regardless of the finding, the partisans of Clinton will stonewall, insisting that the the findings, should there be any, are bogus (or insist on how she is innocent, if there is no significant finding). The partisans against Clinton will do exactly the opposite. There will be no independent expertise (that is highly visible, at any rate), so to speak, who will speak publicly as to what is kosher and what isn't and most of the public will not be able to evaluate whatever is or isn't uncovered.

All in all, then, nothing will change, other than further solidifying existing beliefs, not necessarily without justification. To the degree that people who are presently willing to give Clinton a pass are more numerous, I'd imagine she might be stronger, but further subverting any sense of trust she might enjoy from a large minority of the population, who are already deeply distrustful of her and her clique, would also destroy her ability to govern effectively. What might result is a narrow and precarious majority/plurality trying to beat down a large and determined opposition, even if the latter is smaller, by force, figurative or literal, legal, semi-legal, or informal. This can get very ugly and dangerous.

[norlurking]

I also have been leaning towards that theory.....

[Stephanie]

Very possibly. At the very least, it sounds as if Comey has lost control of his department, with an act of very poor judgment resulting out of fear of congressional Republicans and his viability within his party. This may well backfire on him badly (while still damaging Clinton and casting a shadow on the election).

A colossal screwup. And what certainly looks like an example of government overreach with possible Fourth Amendment issues.

[johnf]

According to Wiki he was raised Irish Catholic but has changed to United Methodist, maybe under the influence of his wife.

What is even more interesting is that, according to Wiki, he is a longtime and close friend of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, also Catholic, who Comey, when Deputy Attorney General in 2003, appointed to run the Grand Jury investigation into the activities of the hooligan Scooter Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff, in the Valerie Plame Affair, where Libby exposed the identity of Plame while she was a CIA agent in-the-field agent. Fitzgerald was later the Chief Prosecutor at Libby's trial and got Libby a prison sentence which GW then conveniently pardoned.

So it seems that Comey is a righteous guy and there are quite a few strong anti-Borg heavyweights in the field. Let's hope Fitzpatrick ends up prosecuting Clinton - or even the Clintons.

[turcopolier]

Stephanie Your comment amounts to an act of political character assassination upon Comey. All of your statements are mere assertions of your hostility to the man. 4th amendment? it sounds to me that you are fearful of losing the election. pl

[alba etie]

All
A pox on all the political partisans . Director Comey is an honorable public servant that both sides have excoriate.

[Croesus]

any logic to the speculation that Weiner is being vindictive? or feeling guilty & practicing CYA?
Didn't listen to the Sunday talkies -- were the Russians mentioned?

[Jack]

This is a perfect example of how partisanship has polarized the country. There is no outrage on the part of Democrats, no disavowal at the handling of classified information by the Borg Queen. Any lesser person would have been crucified. Here we have a person stating that she is the best qualified by virtue of her experience, intellect and temperament to be commander-in-chief of our military yet is demonstrating that to prevent FOIA requests she is willing to jeopardize the national security of the country. And all the Democrat partisans do is howl vast right wing conspiracy.

Our country is no longer governable as our people are so divided and there is no common ground. The urban and coastals who support the Borg have nothing in common with the rural Les Deplorables. The implications if the Borg Queen is elected by the more populated urban & coastal regions is horrendous. She will have to quash the investigations by further politicization of the DOJ and FBI. She will have to continually fight the minority in the GOP who represent Les Deplorables, while paying of the Borgist big money and media. In this type of vitriolic environment the only way out is to escalate the conflict with Russia with even worse implications.

It would seem the right thing to do would be to empanel a grand jury and appoint a special prosecutor. We can't have a powerful political family to be treated differently than any other person with the responsibility to safeguard national security information. There has to be confidence that the justice system has at least some semblance of integrity.

[different clue]

Croesus,

I do not know. I do not know about any of that. But IF Weiner is feeling vindictive or guilty or survival-minded or a combination of all three, then he will make the mid-to-low ranking FBI peoples' jobs easier and the Borg's position a little harder.

He should avoid flying in small planes for a while, and never go walking anywhere alone or after dark . . . when "muggings gone wrong" take place.

[different clue]

Jay,

If Comey is being set up, and if he senses that he is being set up; I hope he knows how to drag down everyone above him all the way down. I hope he is saying to himself " I ain't nobody's grandmother."