F.B.I. Begins Review of Clinton Aide’s Emails

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. on Monday began loading a trove of emails belonging to a top aide to Hillary Clinton into a special computer program that would allow bureau analysts to determine whether they contain classified information, law enforcement officials said. The software should allow them to learn relatively quickly how many emails are copies of messages they have already read as part of the investigation into the use of Mrs. Clinton’s private server. The F.B.I. completed that investigation in July and, along with prosecutors, decided not to bring any charges against Mrs. Clinton or her aides. “This is not a manpower issue,” said one senior law enforcement official. “It’s an issue of getting the emails into a program that can allow agents to look at them.” Whether they will be able to complete their review by Election Day is unclear, although investigators have been under intense pressure from officials in both parties to do so since Friday, when the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, revealed the existence of the emails in an explosive letter to Congress. The emails belong to Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton. Agents discovered them on a laptop seized by the F.B.I. that belongs to her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for exchanging illicit text messages with a 15-year-old girl. While the hunt for classified information is the bureau’s first priority, it is not the most significant issue for either Ms. Abedin or Mrs. Clinton. Investigators have already determined that Mrs. Clinton and her aides improperly sent classified information on her private email server. The Justice Department concluded, though, that it could not prove they did it intentionally, which would be a crime. Finding more classified information among Ms. Abedin’s emails would not immediately change that conclusion. What could cause problems for Ms. Abedin — and by extension Mrs. Clinton — is if the F.B.I. finds evidence that anyone tried to conceal these new emails from investigators. Ms. Abedin has said she turned over all her emails to the F.B.I. months ago and does not know how emails ended up on Mr. Weiner’s laptop. And officials have said there is no indication that Ms. Abedin or Ms. Clinton tried to conceal information from the authorities. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that the White House did not have an official position on Mr. Comey’s decision to alert Congress. But Mr. Earnest came close to suggesting that President Obama saw Mr. Comey’s decision as problematic. Mr. Earnest listed the many powers and authorities that federal law enforcement officials have to investigate for potential wrongdoing and then said, “It’s important that those authorities are tempered by longstanding practice and norms that limit public discussion of facts that are collected in the context of those investigations.” Mr. Earnest added: “And there are a lot of good reasons for that. The president believes that it’s important for those guidelines and norms to be followed.” Justice Department officials had told Mr. Comey that alerting Congress to the discovery of a new cache of emails would violate department rules and norms against both discussing a continuing investigation and taking any actions in the days before an election that might influence that election. But Mr. Comey is a “man of integrity” whom the president does not believe is intentionally trying to influence the outcome of an election, Mr. Earnest said. “He’s in a tough spot,” Mr. Earnest said. The F.B.I. was granted a warrant on Sunday that allowed agents to begin searching the messages. While investigators found hundreds of thousands of emails on Mr. Weiner’s computer, they are focusing on a small portion of the total. The review is being led by the same Washington-based team of agents that conducted the investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s server. As part of that inquiry, the agents built a system that allowed them to examine thousands of emails to see whether they contained sensitive national security information. When the agents identified potentially classified materials, they sent copies of the emails to other government agencies to determine their classification. The emails the F.B.I. is now searching could well be like scores already made public by the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act, including some of the additional ones uncovered by the bureau’s investigation and turned over to the department this summer. Among more than 30,000 emails released are at least 10 sent or received by Ms. Abedin that included information the State Department later deemed to be classified and were only made public with portions redacted. Ms. Abedin, who also had an address on the Clinton server, communicated with Mrs. Clinton many times a day, often acting as a conduit for other members of her State Department team. read more from