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FBI Reopens Investigation Into Hillary Clinton's Emails

Hillary Clinton
AP
October 28, 2016

The FBI is reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state after learning of new emails relevant to the probe.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Friday that FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that the bureau had reopened the case upon discovery of the new emails.

"FBI Dir just informed me, 'The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,'" Chaffetz wrote Friday afternoon on Twitter. "Case reopened."

Comey wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI discovered the new emails in connection with an unrelated case, NBC News reported.

"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation," Comey wrote in a letter. "I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation."

The FBI began investigating Clinton's private server last year, after the intelligence community determined that some of her emails contained top-secret information. While Clinton said that she never sent or receive information marked classified on her personal system, the FBI concluded that 113 emails contained classified information at the time they were sent or received.

While Comey faulted Clinton and her aides for being "extremely careless" in their handling of classified information in July, the director did not recommended charges be pursued in the case.

Critics have argued that Clinton put national security at risk by using an unsecured personal email system to conduct sensitive government business.

The email controversy has dogged Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Her aides have repeatedly cast the matter as a partisan effort to damage her bid for the White House.