Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid joined Hillary Clinton's campaign Sunday in fighting back against the "inappropriate," "unprecedented," and "puzzling" move by FBI Director James Comey to go public with an investigation into new emails related to the probe into her use of a private email server.

The new emails, uncovered during an investigation into disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, husband to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, have rocked the presidential race since Comey informed Congress of their existence on Friday.

Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said he believes that Comey may have been in violation of a federal law, according to a letter he wrote to the FBI director.



Reid said Comey's actions may have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts officials from using their role to sway an election. “Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” the letter reads.



The senator alleged Comey was in possession of "explosive information" connecting Donald Trump to Russian officials but was choosing not to release it.

Reid reminded Comey that he supported the FBI director even when Republicans tried to filibuster his nomination and subsequently delay his confirmation, because, Reid writes, "I believed you to be a principled public servant."

"With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong," Reid wrote.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta also said Sunday that Comey had acted prematurely by not waiting until the FBI had more information on the emails, calling the director's announcement “inappropriate” and an “unprecedented step.”

“This is something that has been tossed into the middle of the campaign," Podesta said. "We would have preferred that that not happen, but now that it has happened, we would prefer that Mr. Comey come forward and explain why he took that unprecedented step."

"[Comey] might have taken the first step of actually having looked at them before he did this in the middle of a presidential campaign, so close to the voting," he added.

The campaign also circulated a letter from former Attorney General Eric Holder and dozens of other former Department of Justice officials and federal prosecutors about their concern that Comey had breached protocol.

"Many of us have worked with Director Comey; all of us respect him," the letter said. "But his unprecedented decision to publicly comment on evidence in what may be an ongoing inquiry just eleven days before a presidential election leaves us both astonished and perplexed."

In addition, Congressman Steve Cohen called on Comey to resign.

"Comey's recent public comments of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her emails, apparently before seeing any evidence, and against the advice of the Juice Department according to press reports, and even, some have suggested, in violation of the Hatch Act, make it clear that for the good of the FBI and the Justice Department, he should resign his position effective immediately," Cohen said in a statement.

The renewed email investigation was sparked by a separate FBI investigation into Weiner, after it was revealed that the former congressman allegedly exchanged sexually explicit texts with an underage girl. Weiner has denied those allegations.

The emails in question were reportedly found on a computer used by both Weiner and Abedin. The couple announced they were separating in August after the New York Post published lewd photos Weiner sent another woman.

CNN reported on Sunday that Clinton and Abedin's lawyers were in talks with the Justice Department and the FBI about the bureau's approval to search Abedin's emails.

The Wall Street Journal reported that up to 650,000 emails were found on Weiner's laptop and said "metadata on the device suggests there may be thousands sent to or from the private server that the Democratic nominee used." The investigation will take, at a minimum, weeks to complete, the newspaper reported.