Angry Hill lashes out over ‘troubling’ turn

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Hillary Clinton lashed out yesterday at the FBI’s handling of a new email review, leading a chorus of Democratic leaders who declared the bureau’s actions just days before the election “unprecedented” and “deeply troubling.”

Rallying supporters in Florida, Clinton pressed FBI Director James B. Comey to put out the “full and complete facts” about the review into a cache of recently discovered emails. Clinton backers panned Comey’s letter to Congress about the new emails as severely lacking crucial details.

“It is pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” Clinton said. She accused her opponent, Donald Trump, of using the issue to confuse and mislead voters in the final leg of the campaign for the Nov. 8 election.

The controversy over Clinton’s email practices at the State Department has dogged her for more than a year. The former secretary of state has often been reluctant to weigh in on the matter — and defensive when she’s been pushed to do so.

But Clinton’s approach to this latest flare-up is markedly different, underscoring worries that the matter could damage her standing with voters in the election’s final days. Clinton advisers have been rallying Democratic lawmakers and other supporters to her defense, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Earlier yesterday, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said there was “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the new email review and “no indication this is even about Hillary.” But Comey, who enraged Republicans in the summer when he announced the FBI would not prosecute Clinton for her loose handling of official email, in fact said the new trove appeared to be “pertinent” to the Clinton email investigation. He did not explain how.