11 days until vote
Friday marks 11 days until Americans vote in federal and state races on Nov. 8. All year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has brought you the key moments in those races, and it will continue to cover the campaign's main events, examine the issues and analyze candidates' finance reports until the last ballot is counted. You can follow the developments on the AJC's politics page at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/georgia-politics/ and in the Political Insider blog at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/political-insider/. You can also track our coverage on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GAPoliticsNews or Facebook at https://facebook.com/gapoliticsnewsnow.
The FBI’s announcement that it had discovered new emails that “appear to be pertinent” to its previous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server sent the presidential campaign further into chaos Friday even as details of the new development remained few.
Clinton’s campaign called on FBI Director James Comey to quickly release more information as details leaked out that appeared to show the Democratic nominee not to be responsible for the newly discovered communiques.
Clinton said Friday, “The American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately.” She urged the FBI to “explain this issue in question, whatever it is, without any delay.”
Comey told congressional leaders that the FBI learned of the new emails through an “unrelated case” and had yet to determine if they were mishandled or whether they are important to the earlier investigation.
The lack of detail in Comey’s letter left the campaigns and the media scrambling for more information and the appropriate responses. Information trickled out of Washington as the afternoon wore on with the New York Times reporting that the emails in question were found on electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top Clinton aide, and her estranged husband, former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner.
NBC’s Pete Williams likewise reported sources inside the investigation told him the emails were found on a “device” not related to Clinton’s server and that the FBI did not believe anyone connected to the investigation withheld information they were supposed to turn over to investigators.
No matter how significant the new emails turn out to be, Comey’s decision to inform Congress of their existence less than two weeks before Election Day on Nov. 8 promises to dominate the campaign for days to come. Republicans used the news to renew attacks on Clinton while Democrats largely avoided the news or at least avoided commenting publicly. Some Clinton supporters worried about the impact the news would have as voters in many states, including Georgia, head to the polls this weekend to vote early.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, campaigning in New Hampshire, seized on Comey’s letter.
“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” he said. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”
Trump for weeks has blasted the FBI after Comey said the agency’s original investigation found Clinton broke no laws and that the agency would not pursue criminal charges against the former secretary of state. On Friday, however, he moderated those views.
“I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the (Justice Department) are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” Trump said. “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.”
Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta said Comey owes it to the country to quickly clear up the situation.
“Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is ‘reopening’ an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization,” Podesta said in a statement. “We have no idea what those emails are and the director himself notes that they may not even be significant. It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.”
Podesta said the campaign was “confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.”
The reaction from Republicans in Georgia, where the race between Clinton and Trump was deadlocked in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released last week, was swift.
Former U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Savannah, a top Trump supporter, showed how the lack of information in Comey’s letter makes Friday’s revelation a boon for Trump.
“This is very, very significant,” Kingston told the AJC. “The public information out there already raises questions. Whatever new information has emerged has got to go far beyond that. This has got to be big.”
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, likewise pounced on the news.
“I believe the FBI mishandled its initial investigation of her activities and is right to return to the evidence,” Collins said in a statement. “I join my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee in encouraging the FBI to pursue a detailed and even-handed examination of the facts in this case.”
Clinton, who was en route to Iowa when the news broke Friday, did not reference the developments in her speech in that battleground state.
Her supporters joined Podesta in questioning the timing of Comey’s letter. U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, said it was an “imprudent and unwise” decision on Comey’s part given that the FBI had not made any final decisions about the value of the new information.
“I’m surprised he would provide this missile to Republicans in Congress to use as a political weapon against Clinton in this late stage. We’re in the middle of early voting,” he said, calling it akin to “putting the thumb on the scale of this campaign.”
But Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz isn’t sure Friday’s news will change the outcome on Nov. 8.
“This isn’t going to make Donald Trump a more acceptable alternative to people who are supporting Clinton,” he said. “People are locked in at this point. There are very few undecided or persuadable voters out there. This is not the thing by itself that will move voters. There will have to be something more specific about the content of those emails.”
Chip Lake, a veteran Georgia Republican strategist, largely agreed.
“I’ve never really thought that the whole email situation was going to have a big political price for her,” said Lake, who is no Trump fan. “This one is (to be determined) because of the timing. I think this one we have to pay a little closer attention to because it was obviously important enough where the FBI felt they needed to make Congress aware.”
Still, Lake said, for “Donald Trump to have any, any chance at all at 270 (electoral votes), this has got to stick and it has to stick like Super Glue.”
Montrea Davis is among the voters unfazed by the latest development. At an early-voting site in DeKalb County, she said Trump’s rhetoric “makes it easier to overlook the emails.”
“You know, I was concerned before this about Hillary, but her agenda is more important,” said Davis, who is in the real estate business. “I don’t like Trump’s mind-set. That doesn’t make my decision easy — I still have to pick between two evils.”
Claudia Habig nearly erupted when asked about the FBI’s announcement as she prepared to cast her ballot for Trump.
“What the hell is she doing running for president? My God, when will this ever end? I am absolutely flabbergasted,” said Habig, an office manager who lives in Dunwoody. “I’ve never seen anybody get away with so much and not have to pay for it.”
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