President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday that Huma Abedin “has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols" and that she "put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents." | Paul Sancya/AP Photo Trump suggests Huma Abedin be jailed after State Department email release

President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide, Huma Abedin, should be jailed after the State Department’s release last week of classified emails found on the laptop of Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner.

“Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid [sic], Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Remember sailors [sic] pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others.”


The emails to which Trump referred, released last week in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch, were the same batch uncovered during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election. The FBI’s disclosure to Congress that it was examining the emails in relation to its closed investigation of Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her tenure as secretary of state offered Trump a powerful line of attack in the 2016 campaign’s closing days, and Clinton has blamed her loss in large part on the FBI’s resurfacing of the email scandal.

A spokesperson for Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The FBI’s review of the emails discovered on Weiner’s computer revealed nothing to change the bureau’s assessment that Clinton’s home-brew email system did not rise to the level of criminal charges, but their release has nonetheless prompted fresh calls from Trump and his allies for continued probing of Clinton and her team.

The president has long suggested that Clinton was given preferential treatment because of her status as a prominent political figure. Tuesday’s tweet was not the first time that Trump has compared Clinton’s case to that of Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier, who pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information after using a cellphone to take pictures of the classified engine room aboard the nuclear submarine he served on and then destroying a laptop, memory card and camera after learning he was under investigation.

Trump has also previously lashed out at former FBI Director James Comey, whom the president fired last year over the bureau’s handling of an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and the possibility that the Trump campaign colluded in those efforts. The president’s suggestion that the Department of Justice probe his political enemies breaks with a longstanding tradition that the department operate free from political influence.

