FBI Director James Comey sent out a letter today about new emails potentially connected to their Hillary Clinton investigation, but he also sent out an internal letter to explain the public letter.

Yes, Comey dropped a rather huge bombshell on the campaign trail today. He did not say the probe into Clinton was being reopened, but he did say that they’ve discovered emails relevant to the case that they would be sorting through.

The Washington Post obtained the text of the letter he sent to FBI employees. Here it is in full:

To all: This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them. Of course, 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. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it. Jim Comey

[image via screengrab]

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