When the FBI announced on Friday that it had “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent” to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server as a result of “an unrelated case,” the biggest question (aside from “Oh my god what did we do to deserve more email server talk?”) was: “What unrelated case?” On Friday afternoon, it was revealed that the case was an FBI investigation into text messages that Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, sent to a 15-year-old girl. Because it’s 2016 and this is the way elections happen now.
According to The New York Times, it could be bad for Clinton:
The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case—one federal official said they numbered in the thousands—potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.
Reinvestigating Clinton’s use of a private email server, as Ryu Spaeth noted earlier today, was already a giant present for Donald Trump. But Weiner’s involvement makes it an extra special present. Back in August, when Weiner and Abedin announced their separation, Trump released this statement that attacked Clinton for potentially sharing sensitive information with Weiner:
Here's Trump on August 29th, speculating Weiner could be a security risk for Clinton's handling of classified information: pic.twitter.com/jCMJ9zsT2z
— DJ Judd (@juddzeez) October 28, 2016
If it turns out that Weiner was in possession of classified information, it will be hard to determine which is worse: the fact that he has jeopardized Clinton’s campaign or that he has proved Donald Trump right.