Thomson Reuters
FBI Director James Comey testifies at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation" on Capitol Hill in Washington
According to one of the officials, FBI Director James Comey "had no idea what was in the content of the emails" when he wrote his letter to Congress Friday announcing the existence of new emails that appeared to be "pertinent" to the completed investigation into Clinton's private email server.
The emails were reportedly discovered after the FBI seized the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The FBI has been investigating Weiner since September in a probe related to his alleged sexting with a 15-year-old girl.
A senior
The DOJ had warned the FBI against alerting Congress to the existence of the emails, according to media reports on Saturday. Announcing the investigation went against longstanding tradition, and could be perceived as influencing, or attempting to influence, the looming election, the reports said.
Comey, who has faced heat from the Clinton campaign and its allies for his vague letter to Congress, told FBI employees in a letter Friday that he felt compelled to inform Congress of the new developments.
"We don't ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed," Comey said, noting his testimony in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record."
Clinton and some of her top campaign aides on Saturday urged Comey to release more information on what it had found.