Hillary Clinton's longtime aide Huma Abedin claims she was unaware of the cache of messages on her estranged husband's laptop that were at the center of FBI Director James Comey's announcement that they were being investigated.
Politico reported that Abedin told colleagues that she does not know how the messages got there.
There are tens of thousands of newly discovered emails, and at least some pertain to when Abedin worked for the State Department from 2009 to 2013. Some of the messages could be duplicates of a larger set of messages the FBI already put together from other devices, according to Politico.
The laptop was seized earlier in October in an FBI probe over allegations that former Congressman Anthony Weiner, Abedin's estranged husband, traded explicit messages with an underage girl.
Comey has been criticized for disclosing that a new probe was under way into the emails. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Comey "may have broken the law" by engaging in partisan politics with the announcement.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder also criticized Comey's actions, saying he unleashed "a torrent of conspiracy theories and misrepresentations."
The Justice Department is trying to review the emails quickly, but it appears unlikely to be completed by Election Day, officials told Politico. To get a search warrant for the laptop, Justice Department lawyers appear to have argued that the messages were likely to contain evidence of a crime.
Comey's comments that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a criminal case against Clinton over her emails could have complicated getting the warrant.
Former federal computer crimes prosecutor Orin Kerr told Politico, "In order to seize evidence on the computer, it needs to be just immediately apparent that it's evidence of a crime. It's hard to know how that would be the case here.
"It sounds like the government thinks this information might be relevant and they'd like to take a look at it, but it's not immediately apparent to me that it would be evidence of a crime."
Clinton campaign manager John Podesta said Abedin has cooperated fully with the investigation. "I don't think she knows anything more than what we've seen in the press to date," Podesta said on CNN's "State of the Union."
The question remains unsettled about what investigators are supposed to do when they find digital evidence that they were not looking for, legal experts said.
According to The Washington Post, the FBI stumbled onto the emails weeks ago, but did not tell Comey about them until Oct. 27. He made the announcement Oct. 28.
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