US ELECTION: Clinton fends off FBI email fallout as polls narrow
Hillary Clinton battled to contain
renewed FBI focus on her emails Sunday as Donald Trump blitzed western
states in the tightening race for the White House.
Nine days before the vote, the
69-year-old former secretary of state hit the campaign trail hard in the
battleground state of Florida.
Clinton blazed through brunch at an
Irish pub, an African-American Baptist church, a soul food restaurant,
an early voting site and a rally at a gay nightclub.
Much of her two-day visit to the
Sunshine State focused on encouraging early voting. Clinton says a
record 200 million Americans have registered to vote, 20 million of whom
have already done so.
But her campaign was jolted when FBI
boss James Comey announced Friday that his agents are reviewing a newly
discovered trove of emails, resurrecting an issue Clinton had hoped was
behind her.
The nominee’s response has been to hit
out at Comey’s move as “deeply troubling” and to rally supporters to get
out and vote, turning the tables on Trump by branding him as unfit to
lead the nation.
“When you’re knocked down, what matters
is whether you get up again,” she told a packed LGBT rally at a gay
nightclub in Wilton Manors, just outside Fort Lauderdale.
“With Donald, it’s always Donald Trump
first and everyone else last. He abuses his power, he games the system
and doesn’t care who is left holding the bag,” she added.
Allegations Clinton put the United
States at risk by using a private email server while secretary of state
were thrust back into the spotlight Friday when Comey revealed a renewed
FBI probe into the matter based on a previously unknown trove of
emails.
Trump — himself under fire for alleged
sexual impropriety and facing misconduct allegations from 12 women — has
gleefully seized upon Comey’s move in an attempt to offset his own
trailing in most polls.
– Law broken? –
The Republican campaigned hard Sunday,
attending church in Las Vegas, before leading three rallies in Nevada,
Colorado and Albuquerque, New Mexico, whipping up his support base
against Clinton.
“We all know about Hillary’s mounting
legal troubles, that she has brought onto herself with her serial,
wilful, purposeful and deliberate criminal conduct,” he told the crowed
in New Mexico.
“Hillary Clinton is not the victim, you
the American people are the victims of this corrupt system in every
single way and folks this is your last chance to save it,” he said to
chants of “lock her up.”
The 70-year-old tycoon repeatedly has
described her email issue as “the single biggest scandal since
Watergate” — the wrongdoing that brought down Republican president
Richard Nixon in 1974.
The Clinton campaign has reacted with
fury to Comey’s move, demanding that he explain in detail why he had
effectively reopened an inquiry declared complete in July.
“It was long on innuendo, short on facts,” Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta told CNN.
The US Senate’s top Democrat told the FBI chief that through “partisan actions, you may have broken the law.”
“As soon as you came into possession of
the slightest innuendo related to secretary Clinton, you rushed to
publicize it in the most negative light possible,” Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid said in a statement.
While the candidate looking to make
history as America’s first female president remains the overwhelming
favorite, polls are narrowing.
– Reported FBI warrant –
An ABC News/Washington Post survey put the Democratic presidential candidate just one point ahead of her Republican challenger.
In Florida — a must-win state for the
tycoon — Trump overcame a one-point deficit in September to enjoy a
four-point lead, according to a New York Times Upshot/Siena College
Research Institute poll.
According to US media, the probe was
renewed after agents seized a laptop used by Clinton’s close aide, Huma
Abedin, and her now estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.
The disgraced former congressman who
resigned in 2011 after sending explicit online messages is under
investigation over allegations he sent sexual overtures to a 15-year-old
girl.
The Washington Post wrote late Sunday
that it learned from one US official that the total number of emails
recovered in the Weiner investigation is close to 650,000 — although not
all of them are relevant to the Clinton investigation.
US networks reported Sunday that the FBI
had obtained a warrant to search the emails. According to CNN,
discovery of the emails occurred weeks ago although the FBI did not
reveal the matter until Friday.
Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway lashed out at Clinton.
“She just has to call her friend and
confidante Huma Abedin and say tell us what’s in the emails, tell us
what’s on the devices that you shared with your pedophile husband,”
Conway told Fox News.
Clinton’s campaign has been overshadowed
from the start by the scandal, but experts believe the FBI is unlikely
to make significant progress before election day and few expect her to
face charges.
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