Former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell believes FBI Director’s James Comey’s initial letter to Congress announcing a second look at Hillary Clinton’s private email server did damage to her campaign that his second letter to Congress –intended to clear her — may not be able to repair.
Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee Chair, told 1210 WPHT’s Rich Zeoli Monday night, “It’s a little bit too late. It might have helped with a few Clinton voters who were thinking of voting for Hillary Clinton. Then when the Comey letter came out, they were discouraged and decided to not vote at all. Maybe [the second letter] will re-energize them and get them out to the polls. But it was a little too late to make a significant impact.”
On October 28, 11 days before election day, Comey sent a letter to members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who hold top leadership positions on key committees and told them the agency discovered new emails from an unrelated case that could potentially be connected to the Clinton server investigation. Comey indicated the FBI would take another look. The announcement came almost four months after he suggested to the Justice Department not to prosecute Clinton over the email case.
Democrats, who previously praised Comey, became angry over the letter and accused him of politicizing the case and endangering Clinton’s chances on Election Day.
However, last Sunday, Comey sent another letter to the same members of Congress telling them that after the agency went through the 650,000 emails, seized from the laptop of Clinton staffer Huma Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner, it was decided that no new conclusions came out of the second examination. Rendell, though, says the first letter did its damage.
“The first Comey letter re-energized the Trump campaign–not the Trump loyalists. They were voting for him no matter what, but there were a lot of Republicans that didn’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton who were really deciding not to vote just because they were discouraged,” Rendell said.
He explained, “And then the [first] Comey letter, in my judgment, convinced them to come out and vote. So it definitely boosts the number of people for Donald Trump who were gonna come out and vote. I think that was the main beneficiary. In the end, it may have discouraged some people leaning towards voting for Hillary Clinton. Did the second Comey later on Sunday re-energize some of them? Maybe. But I’m pretty doubtful.”