FBI Director James Comey's decision to inform Congress the agency was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails "created the hottest political football of the 2016 election," according to The New York Times.
Comey sent a letter to members of Congress on Friday, triggering a flurry of controversy over whether the FBI found anything substantive in the emails found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, former New York congressman and estranged husband of Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin, who is being investigated for allegedly sending sexually explicit texts to an underage girl.
"Now, thanks to Mr. Comey's breathtakingly rash and irresponsible decision, the Justice Department and FBI are scrambling to process hundreds of thousands of emails to determine whether there is anything relevant in them before Nov. 8 — all as the country stands by in suspense," the Times editorial board wrote Monday.
Comey "is a man of integrity and honor," wrote former Attorney General Eric Holder in an op-ed for The Washington Post, adding he respects Comey, "but good men make mistakes. In this instance, he has committed a serious error with potentially severe implications."
The editors of the Times note "even if emails with classified information are found on Mr. Weiner's computer, that may not change Mr. Comey's decision, announced in July, to recommend against filing charges against Mrs. Clinton, since the FBI has already determined that she did not intentionally mishandle classified information.
"In an election that has featured the obliteration of one long-accepted political or social norm after another, it is sadly fitting that one of the final and perhaps most consequential acts was to undermine the American people's trust in the nation's top law enforcement agencies."
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