Just picture this. You are the director of the FBI. A couple of weeks before the presidential election and the polls are showing that is the current trends continue there will be a clear win for Donald Trump (personally I think he will make 275).
What will Donald’s first job be – hmm – is he the sort of guy that let’s people challenge him? Maybe something to do with Hilary and arrest? Hang on – we just said she was innocent – that means Donald might just have me in his cross-hairs. How can I avoid it?
Easy – re-open the investigation – but make it public(ish).
Just think about it – after extensive investigation Hilary was found to have done nothing wrong. Then some other emails appear that may or may not be anything to do with her, and the FBI sees fit to put out a public letter saying they will investigate her.
Now I’m not saying they shouldn’t investigate, but they could have at least checked the emails first. I mean, how long does it take to search for the word “secret” in a bunch of emails, or to search meta data for anything from the state department. Given the expertise of the intelligence community this should take less than five minutes. Wikileaks could do it in a day easily.
In this country we have something called purdah (well, we actually stole the word from India) when public servants need to withdraw from public statements that might affect an election. The question that would be asked in a situation like this would be “is there a need to say something in public”.
So, did the FBI need to investigate, or need to announce they were going to investigate? Let’s start with the concept of “innocent till proven guilty”. Do you think the announcement could disadvantage Hilary?
But then ask yourself, when (sorry if) she loses the election and is found innocent – what will the damages against the FBI be? Just what is the presidency of the USA worth?
Maybe the FBI are trying to save their skin from an angry President Donald – but they might just have landed themselves in the cross-hairs of an angry non-president Hilary.