A defiant Hillary Clinton urged the FBI to release whatever information it has, adding that she is confident no charges will be brought against her.
“We don’t know the facts, which is why we are calling on the FBI to release all the information that it has,” Clinton told reporters during a brief news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday. “Even Director Comey noted that this new information may not be significant, so let’s get it out.”
Clinton went on to say that she had not been contacted by the FBI and only learned about the new email probe though the media.
After Clinton read a prepared statement, a reporter asked whether it was true that the emails were found on her aide Huma Abedin’s computer, as has been reported by the New York Times earlier in the day. Clinton said she didn’t know, while referring to the reports as “rumors.”
“We’ve heard these rumors,” Clinton said. “We don’t know what to believe. And I’m sure there will be even more rumors. That’s why it is incumbent upon the FBI to tell us what they are talking about.”
On Friday, Clinton’s campaign was rocked by FBI director James Comey’s announcement that the agency was investigating new information regarding Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday, bureau director James Comey said that, “the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation … 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.”
Comey did not explain where the new emails came from, only saying that they surfaced “in connection with an unrelated case.”
The New York Times reported Friday that the new batch of related emails were discovered on the devices of former Congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife, Clinton aide Abedin, as part of another FBI investigation into illicit text messages that Weiner sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.
In July, the FBI announced it would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton. But Comey called the handling of sensitive information “extremely careless.”