FBI Director James Comey’s actions announcing that his office was reviewing additional emails related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of government information 11 days before the presidential election may have violated a federal law, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said according to a report published Sunday.
"I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act," Reid wrote in a letter he was preparing to send to Comey according to The Wall Street Journal. "Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law."
Comey on Friday sent a letter to lawmakers indicating that the agency had stumbled upon additional emails it found on a computer shared by former congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin, Clinton's top aide.
The Hatch Act is a federal law passed in 1939 which "limits certain political activities of federal employees, as well as some state, D.C., and local government employees who work in connection with federally funded programs. The law's purposes are to ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation."
"The opinion from Mr. Reid, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, carries more political weight than legal significance and comes as Democrats aim to circle the wagons around their presidential nominee in the final days of the campaign," writes the Journal.
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