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FBI reopens investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails case

FBI Director James Comey testifies during a hearing before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 7, 2016 in the Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says it is reopening its investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's email server, in what appears to be an unexpected move coming over a week before the November election.  

FBI Director James Comey made the announcement in a letter to Congress on Friday, saying the agency has uncovered new emails related to a comprehensive probe into whether Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified information.

"In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation," he wrote.

The FBI director said he was not sure how long the additional review would take and added that his department "cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant."

He declined to provide any further details about the nature of the new emails that are now being looked into.

This is while Comey said last month that the FBI had closed the investigation after determining that no one should face criminal charges.

US Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign rally at Wake Forest University on October 27, 2016 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (Photo by AFP)

The Democratic nominee underwent a long-running federal investigation over her use of a private email server that involved exchanging thousands of potentially classified emails during her tenure as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013, but she was cleared of any involvement by the FBI earlier this year.

Clinton sent more than 30,000 emails to the State Department during her tenure as secretary, which were then published in batches in line with a court order.

Trump rejoices at the news

The Friday announcement made the day of Clinton's rival, Donald Trump, as the Republican nominee was campaigning in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"They are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States of America," Trump said to loud applause.

"Hillary Clinton's corruption is on a scale we have never seen before, we must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office. I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made," he added.

"This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understood, and it is everybody's hope that it is about to be corrected," Trump concluded.

With just eleven days to go before the US presidential vote, the New York businessman himself is struggling to handle the fallout from the release of a 2005 tape that showed him talking on an open microphone bragging about groping women.

Since the video's release, about a dozen women have accused Trump of groping them or kissing them without their consent.

Trump has called the allegations "absolutely false."


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