FBI director James Comey’s decision to announce re-opened investigations into Hillary Clinton may have been an illegal act, the Senate leader of the Democrats has claimed.
The senator for Nevada, Harry Reid, has warned that FBI Director James Comey may have violated the terms of the ‘Hatch Act‘, which states that no official should attempt to influence the election.
In a letter to the FBI director, Reid said that “Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law”.
In addition, Reid accused Mr Comey of withholding “explosive information about close ties between [Republican candidate] Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government”.
“The public has a right to know about this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public,” he added.
Donald Trump welcomed the development, saying at a rally in Las Vegas that “Hillary has nobody but herself to blame for her mounting legal problems.”
Mr Comey announced over the weekend that the FBI had obtained a warrant to re-examine Clinton’s emails, following the initial closure of the case in July. His announcement comes just ahead of the US election on November 8th, and has prompted concern from the Clinton campaign and Democrats alike.
A major issue with Clinton’s candidacy are the concerns over her trustworthiness after her alleged mishandling of confidential emails through a private email server as Secretary of State. Consequently, the most recent FBI decision to re-open the case may be particularly damaging for Clinton in the last stretch of her campaign.
Although it remains difficult to quantify the extent to which this latest FBI probe will affect Clinton’s support, many polls have already suggested that Clinton’s lead over Trump has already significantly decreased. Last week numerous polls suggested that Clinton had maintained a 12 point lead over her Republican opponent, however, according to data collated by the Washington post and ABC places Mr Trump just 1 point behind the former Secretary of State.
The Hatch Act came into force in 1939, and was passed in the interest of ensuring that federal employments do not exploit their positions to benefit a particular party or political organisation.