US Elections: 06 Days to Go: Clinton slams FBI ‘double standards’

Democratic US presidential nominee Hillary Clinton greets supporters during a campaign rally in Lake Worth, Florida.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign team has accused the FBI of “double standards” after its decision to launch a new probe into her emails slashed the candidate’s election lead over Republican rival Donald Trump almost in half.

The Democrat’s lead slumped from 4.6 percentage points on Friday to 2.5 points late on Monday, according to the Real Clear Politics tracker which averages most major polls.

And yesterday, an ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll put Trump a point ahead of his Democratic rival.

The poll also registered a seven point decline for Clinton in the share of likely voters who are strongly enthusiastic about her, a possible reflection of the renewed controversy over her use of a private server while secretary of state, pollster Gary Langer said.

Trump’s 46-45 percent lead in the four-way race for the White House, while well within the margin of error, is the first time he has been polled ahead of Clinton in the survey since May.

The FBI said on Friday that it had found thousands of emails, during an unrelated investigation, that may be “pertinent” to its review of Clinton’s use of a private server from 2009 to 2013.

But Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook decried what he called a “blatant double standard” following a CNBC report that FBI Director James Comey opposed releasing details about possible Russian interference in the US election because it was too close to Election Day. The FBI declined to comment on that report on Monday.

But just a week ahead of the election – a time when candidates typically feel that the hard work of the campaign is behind them – both Clinton and Trump have ratcheted up their attacks on the other’s character and fitness for office.

Clinton, who had been riding high in opinion polls in recent weeks as Trump was hit by fallout from the release of a 2005 video in which he bragged in vulgar terms of groping women, now finds herself on the defensive.

Trump is hoping to convince voters that electing Clinton would prompt “a constitutional crisis that we cannot afford,” as her emails would be subject to years of controversy, in the wake of the FBI’s announcement on Friday that it continues to investigate material possibly related to her emails.

But Clinton, at her own rally in Kent, Ohio, said the FBI was welcome to check her aide’s emails   too.

“They should look at them and I’m sure they’ll reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my emails for the past year: there is no case here,” she said.

She also continued to level attacks against Trump’s ability to control nuclear weapons.

“I am running against someone who says he doesn’t understand why we can’t use nuclear weapons,” she said in Cincinnati. “He wants more countries to have nuclear weapons.

“I wonder if he even knows that a single nuclear warhead can kill millions of people,” she added.

A Reuters survey conducted in the midst of the FBI’s announcement showed Clinton on 44 per cent of the vote to Trump’s 39 per cent, already slipping slightly from a six-point lead.

But that poll may not yet represent the full impact of the damage from Comey’s letter to Congress, that his agency was looking into new emails uncovered during an unrelated investigation into Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Rep Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman, is being investigated in connection with online communications with a teenage girl. The new emails were found on a computer he shared with Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest advisors.

But with less than a week to go to election day, there is some doubt as to whether the FBI will be able to release the findings of its new probe before the nation goes to vote.

And Clinton said that timing raised “a few questions” for the FBI. “It is pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” she said.

“In fact it is not just strange, it is unprecedented and deeply troubling. Voters deserve to get full and complete facts, so we call on  director Comey to explain everything right away and put it all out on the table.”

The Justice Department, moving to address concerns over the timing of the revelation of the emails and a potential post-election spillover, said it would “dedicate all necessary resources” to concluding the review promptly.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said he would neither defend nor criticise the timing of Comey’s disclosure. But he also said President Barack Obama does not believe Comey was trying to influence the election, or attempting to benefit one candidate or party.

Source: The Daily Star