You’ve read the news, right? The FBI probe into Clinton’s e-mails has been re-opened. Here’s a link that I most recently happened to have open on my browser.
Now, my initial reaction, like most of you, probably, was surprise that any new development would be material enough for Comey to re-open the investigation, when there were already pretty clearly classified information in the e-mails, some of it well beyond anything the Democrats could rationalize with “it was trivial and shouldn’t have been classified in the first place,” but Comey justified it all on the basis of intent: she didn’t intentionally share this, or didn’t create a server with the intent of making classified information vulnerable. It just ended up happening out of carelessness.
Which is why I’m thinking that whatever came to light since then was not classified information of greater seriousness or quantity, but something that “goes to intent,” as they say in your generic crime drama — something that either would objectively prove Comey’s assessment of “no deliberate intent” to be false, or something that would just royally p*** him off.
For instance:
HRC: [redacted. redacted. redacted.]
HA: Let’s talk about that when we meet up later today.
HRC: No, I really want your opinion on this now. It’s important. [redacted. redacted. redacted.]
HA: I’ve told you before, I don’t feel comfortable talking about these sorts of things via e-mail. This isn’t a secure server, and there’s always a risk we could be hacked.
HRC: Oh, you’re back to your “we should be using state.gov e-mails” again? I told you before, that’s a load of c***. I refuse to have my e-mails subject to the FOIA; I deserve my privacy, and those nasty Republicans don’t deserve to see them. Besides, those *****s at the FBI are full of it when they worry about what’s classified and what isn’t. They gave me that briefing but my eyes just glazed over at all their protocols. It’s dumb.
HA: But you could still keep the private server for your Clinton Foundation e-mails.
HRC: And I told you before, that the Clinton Foundation and the State Department are one and the same, as far as I’m concerned.
Now, that’s an extreme scenario, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the e-mail in question was something of that character.
UPDATE: Yes, I know there are articles, columns, blog posts, tweets, and interviews in which one Clinton supporter after the next says that Comey was completely out of line in re-opening the investigation — that whatever new evidence he had should have just been ignored, no matter what it is, that to fail to do so is unprecedented (though there are counter-examples like Stevens in Alaska), and the fact that he did not do so means that he is actively trying to get Trump elected. But this makes no sense — why would Comey, who’s been thoroughly criticized by Republicans for seemingly treating Clinton as above the law, at the very last minute change his approach for political reasons? Imagine that were the case — that his motivation was political: surely he would have to realize that it’s unlikely to have a significant impact on votes, and Clinton is still likely to win, and his career would be in the toilet no matter whether Republican pundits like him more than before. I don’t see the benefit to his career in taking this action. And if there was no benefit to him, and, in fact, if he knew that this action opened him up to massive criticism, I still think there was a deeper reason than just “well, I’m just letting everyone know that we found some new evidence that could conceivably be connected to Clinton.”
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