This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The FBI has acquired a warrant to investigate emails found on a laptop used by an aide to Hillary Clinton as part of its investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee’s use of a private email server.

The move came as senior Senate Democrats made an extraordinary attack on the head of the FBI, James Comey, on Sunday over the new investigation, with the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, warning he may have broken the law.

In a scathing letter, Reid wrote: “Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another.

“My office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan action, you may have broken the law.”

James Comey: Hillary Clinton email inquiry is FBI chief's latest controversy Read more

The Hatch Act limits the political activity of federal employees, for instance barring them from seeking public office or using their authority “or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election”.

Democratic congressman Steve Cohen on Sunday night called for Comey to resign. He said Comey’s letter “was plainly premature, careless and unprecedented in its potential impact upon a presidential election without a speck of information regarding the emails in question, their validity, substance or relevance”.

Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) In light of the recent comments by #FBI Director #Comey re: #HillaryClinton emails, I call on him to resign. Read my full statement here: pic.twitter.com/41XhdanQSA

The former attorney general Eric Holder joined dozens of former federal prosecutors in signing a letter critical of Comey.

The letter obtained on Sunday by the Associated Press said Comey broke from justice department policy when he alerted Congress to the new discovery of emails potentially related to the Clinton email investigation.

That policy is meant to prevent the appearance of prosecutors affecting the electoral process.

The former prosecutors said in the letter that Comey’s disclosure had “invited considerable, uninformed public speculation” about the significance of the emails.

In a brief letter to congressional leaders on Friday, 11 days before the election, Comey said he did not yet know whether the newly discovered emails were pertinent or significant. The Trump campaign, trailing in national polls, seized on the news, which the candidate himself said was indicative of a scandal “bigger than Watergate”.

On Sunday, Reid went on, without citing evidence, to accuse Comey of withholding information about the FBI’s investigation into hacks on Democratic organizations, allegedly by Russian security services, and possible links with various former advisers to Donald Trump. In August, Reid wrote to Comey to express concern over alleged links between Trump associates, Russian sources and the hacks.

“There is no danger to American interests from releasing it,” Reid said. “And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.

“By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible.”

Four other senior Senate Democrats – Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Ben Cardin and Thomas Carper – have written to Comey since he announced the review, demanding a full briefing on the new emails by Monday.

The emails belong to Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, and were found during an investigation into Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, over allegations that he sent sexual messages to an underage girl. On Sunday, anonymous officials told the Associated Press that FBI investigators had known for weeks that they might find pertinent emails on his device, but that Comey was not briefed until Thursday.

On Sunday the Wall Street Journal reported that there are about 650,000 emails to search, including possibly thousands sent to or from Clinton’s private server. In July, Comey announced that the FBI had found no intentional or criminal wrongdoing in Clinton’s use of a private server while secretary of state, although he called her practices “extremely careless”.

Comey’s letter was reportedly sent against the advice of top justice department officials, including the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and he admitted in a leaked memo to FBI staff that it was a break from policy and precedent to announce a review.

The FBI's email probe is a fitting end to this dumpster fire of an election | Richard Wolffe Read more

FBI directors have historically shied from public attention. Even J Edgar Hoover, the controversial and ambitious first head of the agency, studiously protected his own reputation.

Comey served as deputy attorney general under George W Bush and was appointed to head the FBI by Barack Obama. He was a Republican for most of his career, though he told Congress in July that he is no longer registered with the party.

Earlier on Sunday, top officials in Clinton and Trump’s campaigns dueled over the new review. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, and Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, assailed Comey for defying convention with so few details so close to election day. Both called on Comey to release more information about the content of the emails.

“This was an unprecedented action,” Podesta told CNN, echoing what has become the Clinton campaign’s official defense. “The justice department has had a longstanding tradition of not interfering with elections.”

Podesta called Comey’s letter “long on innuendo and short on facts”.“We’re calling on Mr Comey to come forward and explain what’s at issue here,” he said. “It may not even be about her server. It may not be about her at all.” He added that Comey had “said himself, in his letter to the hill, that these emails may not be significant”.

Speaking in Las Vegas, Trump accused Clinton of bribing Lynch with the promise of reappointment and said she “set up an illegal server for the obvious purpose of shielding her criminal conduct from public disclosure and exposure”.

He also joked: “We never thought we were going to say thank you to Anthony Weiner.”

His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told CNN Comey had done the right thing by announcing the review.

“Had he sat on the information,” she said, “one could argue that he also would have been interfering with the election, by not disclosing to the public that yet again, for the second time this year, Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation for something of her own doing.

“She is unfit to be president based on her constant flouting of the law.”

Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, echoed the businessman’s accusation of corruption in less explicit terms and mentioned Lynch’s controversial meeting with Bill Clinton at a Phoenix airport this summer, which Lynch herself said “cast a shadow” over the investigation.

The effect of the news on polling, in which according to realclearpolitics.com Clinton leads by four points nationally, was not yet clear.

Clinton broached the letter on Friday, calling Comey’s behavior “strange”, “unprecedented” and “deeply troubling”. “It’s pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information just days before an election,” she said.

Her running mate said on Sunday he expected Comey to reach the same conclusion – that Clinton’s actions were not criminal – in light of these new emails.

“This is a distraction,” Kaine told ABC. Like Reid, Kaine suggested that Comey had acted outside the bounds of his office, saying the letter was “in violation of normal justice department protocol, and it involves talking about an ongoing investigation, which also violated protocol.

“It’s just extremely puzzling why you would break these two protocols,” he said, “when you haven’t even seen the emails yourself.”

Reid ended his letter with a personal rebuke of the FBI director. “Please keep in mind that I have been a supporter of yours in the past,” he wrote, noting that he had fought to secure Comey’s confirmation through Republican filibusters, “because I believed you to be a principled public servant”.

“With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.”