Clinton politicising FBI investigation, fresh inquiries indicate she committed egregious offense: Trump

Washington: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of politicising the FBI investigation into her alleged email scandal, saying fresh inquiries against her could only indicate that she has committed an egregious criminal offense. “Clinton tried to politicise this investigation by attacking and falsely accusing the FBI director of only sending the letter to Republicans, another Clinton lie, as it turned out the letter was sent to both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress,” Trump said at his third and final rally of the day in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “The FBI would never have reopened this case at this time unless it were a most egregious criminal offense,” he said, while his supporters shouted “lock her up.” “I’ve had plenty of words about the FBI lately, but I give them great credit for having the courage to right this horrible wrong. Justice will prevail,” Trump claimed. Trump later called the day’s news “this recent disaster for her, but justice for the country.” [caption id=“attachment_3079602” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A file photo of Donald Trump. AP[/caption] This was Trump’s first reaction after Clinton’s brief press conference in the same city in Iowa last night wherein she asked FBI to “immediately” release information related to the decision of the FBI Director James Comey to re-open the investigation into her alleged email scandal. She alleged that the FBI had written the letter to only Republican members of the Congress. The FBI letter was addressed to eight GOP chairs, along with the Democratic ranking members of each committee. “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,” Comey wrote in the letter addressed to several top leaders of the House and the Senate. “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to this investigation,” Comey said. Later in the day, Comey write an email to the FBI employee explaining his decision to write to the Congressional leadership on an ongoing investigation. Clinton’s vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine said the FBI’s handling of the email investigation was troubling. “When you do this 11 days before a presidential election and you don’t provide many details, but details are apparently being given by the FBI to the press, this is very, very troubling, and we hope that the director— and we really think that he should give a clearer accounting of exactly what’s going on right now,” Kaine told Vice News. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential candidate, urged FBI to release more information on the email arguing that people have a right to know what was uncovered. In a lead editorial, The Washington Post said the FBI’s decision to re-open the investigation less than two weeks before the 8 November general elections would have an impact on the race to the White House. The Post was joined by The New York Times in slamming Comey for his decision. Both the papers have endorsed Clinton as US president.