We hit the motherlode!
Gloating Trump revels in Hillary email scandal... but now HE faces questions over his links to Kremlin
DONALD Trump last night gloated over the email scandal that has wiped out Hillary Clinton’s poll lead.
He told cheering supporters: ‘We hit the motherlode!’ – a mining reference to striking gold – and boasted it would deliver him to the White House.
As the FBI decision to reopen its probe into Mrs Clinton’s emails sunk in, Mr Trump said it would herald the end of ‘the Clinton crime spree’. But he faced trouble of his own as the FBI was urged to investigate his campaign’s alleged links to Vladimir Putin.
Mrs Clinton’s 12-point lead in opinion polls last week fell to just one after FBI chief James Comey announced the agency had 650,000 emails on a laptop belonging to the husband of one of her top aides, Huma Abedin.
The laptop was seized from Anthony Weiner by FBI agents investigating claims he sent explicit messages to a child.
Miss Abedin has now been exiled by the Clinton campaign and was described by the former First Lady as just ‘one of my staffers’.
Yesterday the FBI obtained a warrant to read the emails, as part of a probe into whether Mrs Clinton broke rules by sending classified information over a private server.
Mr Comey was accused of trying to swing the election by announcing the investigation days before next Tuesday’s vote. Joe Walsh, a Republican ex-congressman, tweeted: ‘I want Trump to win, but what Comey just did to Hillary is wrong and really unfair to her.’
But Mr Trump told fans in Michigan: ‘It took a lot of guts what Comey did. This is the biggest scandal since Watergate. Hillary wants to blame everyone else for her mounting legal troubles but she has brought all of this on herself.’
Referring to emails allegedly deleted by Mrs Clinton, he added: ‘I think they are going to find the 33,000 that are missing. I think we hit the motherlode as they say in the good old mining community.’
Mrs Clinton played down the scandal, telling a rally in Ohio: ‘I’ve said it was a mistake and I regret it. Most people decided quite a long time ago what they think … By all means they should look at them. I am sure they will reach the same conclusion as when they looked at my emails – there is no case.’
She added: ‘Trump should immediately disclose all of his ties and connections to the Kremlin and its associates.’ Ex-Trump aides Paul Manafort and Carter Page are both accused of creating ‘ channels of communication’ with the Kremlin. Democratic grandee Elijah Cummings called on Mr Comey to say
whether the FBI was investigating
Trump-Putin links. Senate Democrat leader Harry Reid wrote to the FBI chief: ‘It has become clear that you possess explosive information about the close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the US. The public has a right to know this information.’
The Clinton camp also suggested Trump might launch a nuclear war. They found the ‘Daisy girl’ from a 1964 Lyndon B Johnson advert warning of nuclear conflict. Yester- day, in an updated version, Monique Corzilius Luiz said: ‘I never thought our children would ever have to deal with that again.’
Mrs Clinton said Mr Trump should ‘never be put in charge’ of the US nuclear arsenal. Her running mate Tim Kaine adding: ‘Trump as commander-in- chief scares me to death.’
In response to criticism of Mr Comey over the timing of his announcement, the White House said President Obama regarded him as a ‘man of integrity’. But 100 former prosecutors signed a letter saying his decision ‘leaves us both astonished and perplexed’.
Secretary of State John Kerry said the election was now ‘ downright embarrassing’ and ‘difficult for our country’s perception abroad’.
Last night the Justice Department said it would dedicate whatever resources were needed to quickly review the emails.
Dominic Sandbrook – Page 14
‘Should disclose all ties’