Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Infuriated Clinton comes out swinging at Comey
FBI chief ’s Friday bombshell set off campaign panic
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With just days to go until the election, a fiercely defiant Hillary Clinton demanded answers Saturday about what she suggested is a politically motivated renewal of a previously shuttered federal inquiry into her use of a private email server at the State Department.
As her campaign scrambled Saturday to respond to FBI Director James Comey’s decision to notify Congress about renewing the email investigation, Clinton and her top aides characterized the action as inappropriate and irresponsible.
“It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” Clinton said as a supportive crowd cheered her on and booed when she referred to Comey. “In fact, it’s not just strange. It’s unprecedented and it’s deeply troubling.”
Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump, seized on Comey’s letter in an apparent effort to shift focus from his own controversies and score a last-minute surge in the race.
The Democratic nominee’s strongly worded response to the new inquiry signaled a decision to go fully on offense against Comey and confront the email issue and Republican attacks head-on. It signaled clearly the havoc wrought by Comey’s announcement and Democrats’ strategy to head off game-changing political damage from a development that had left them sputtering both inside and outside the campaign.
The campaign’s internal panic over the renewed FBI scrutiny was evident almost immediately after the news broke on Friday. Clinton was in the air, flying from an airport in White Plains, New York, to campaign in Iowa. Upon landing in Cedar Rapids, she and her top aides remained cloistered in her cabin for more than 20 minutes before she emerged and ignored questions shouted at her by the press.
On Saturday morning, the campaign hastily arranged a telephone briefing with Clinton’s top two aides, campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook. The briefing took place on just more than 20 minutes’ notice. In addition to the unusual firepower — Podesta does not brief the press regularly — the campaign took the additional step of providing a transcript after the fact, the better to reap any benefit from Podesta’s strong language.
Podesta, a longtime Clinton family confidant, sounded agitated and angry during the call with reporters early Saturday afternoon as he described Comey’s surprise announcement Friday as “long on innuendo and short on facts,” allowing Republicans to “distort and exaggerate” its message. Podesta also sent a strongly worded letter to supporters.
In her appearance Saturday, Clinton stopped just short of accusing Comey, once a registered Republican, of partisan interference in the Nov. 8 election. But she did not attempt to conceal her anger.
Other Democrats went much further, issuing scathing assessments of Comey’s motives and timing, as the potential for new legal jeopardy involving the Democratic nominee roiled an already tumultuous campaign.
The approach was notable given the kid-glove treatment accorded Comey by Clinton and her campaign before now and the long silence that followed the initial news about Comey’s letter on Friday. Several hours passed before either Clinton or anyone on her staff weighed in on the issue.
Of chief concern to Democrats now is whether the development, and the uncertainty surrounding it, will cause supporters to disengage or stay home. Meanwhile, the development has been a political gift to Trump, who drew huge applause Saturday when he called Clinton corrupt and untrustworthy.
Trump said he thinks that some of the thousands of emails that Clinton deleted “were captured yesterday,” even though officials do not yet know what is in the emails. He also suggested, without evidence, that there was “a revolt” in the FBI that led to the letter being sent on Friday.
Trump devoted most of a noontime rally in Golden, Colorado, on Saturday to telling his supporters about the FBI letter and detailing the controversy.
“As you have heard, it was just announced yesterday that the FBI is reopening their investigation in the criminal and illegal conduct of Hillary Clinton,” Trump said about 10 minutes into the rally. He then walked away from his lectern and applauded the news along with his supporters, who began chanting: “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
“This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and it’s everybody’s deepest hope that justice, at last, can be properly delivered,” Trump said to more cheers. “Hillary has nobody to blame but herself for her mounting legal troubles. Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful.”
Voters continue to tell pollsters they disapprove of Clinton’s handling of the email issue, with many doubting that she has been fully truthful. But until now, the email issue seemed to be receding, and Clinton had sounded increasingly confident as she maintained a lead in most national polls over the past several weeks.
Polls had begun to tighten even before the FBI development, and it is unclear what effect it will have.