WASHINGTON—The presidential election has somehow gotten stranger. And it has gotten substantially worse for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

In a significant surprise blow to Clinton, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced Friday that it will now do more investigating of emails related to her private home server — because of Anthony Weiner’s sexting.

The FBI said it learned of new emails as a result of an “unrelated case.” That case, according to the New York Times, is the investigation of the serial sexter who is married to, but separated from, a top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin.

The New York Times reported that the emails were found on electronic devices seized from Weiner and Abedin as part of a probe into Weiner’s alleged sexual messages to a 15-year-old girl.

It is not clear if Clinton did anything wrong. Anonymous law enforcement sources told various U.S. news outlets that the emails in question were not sent by Clinton, nor found on Clinton’s server.

To the frustration of Clinton’s campaign, though, the vague letter from FBI director James Comey to congressional committee chairmen did not provide those specifics, leaving room for Republican candidate Donald Trump and his allies to fill in the blanks.

“This is bigger than Watergate,” Trump said at a rally in New Hampshire.

“Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” he said. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”

At an evening news conference in Iowa, Clinton called on the FBI to “explain this issue in question, whatever it is, without any delay.” She said she was “confident” the emails would not change the FBI’s decision not to charge her with anything.

“Even director Comey noted that this new information may not be significant, so let’s get it out,” she said.

She laughed when asked if the matter could sink her campaign.

“I think people a long time ago made up their minds about the emails,” she said. “I think that’s factored into what people think.”

Regardless, the news is the best in weeks for Trump, who has been staring at the possibility of a blowout defeat. With just 10 days left before election day, Clinton will now face a flurry of stories about the controversy that has reinforced voters’ concerns about her judgment and transparency. The apparent connection to Weiner, a favourite character of the tabloids, may give the news even more prominence.

Commentators saw irony in the possibility that the campaign of a woman vying to be the first female president could be derailed by the sexual behaviour of a male acquaintance. Trump had already been castigating Clinton for her response to sexual assault allegations against her husband, the former president.

“I’m sorry but these men and their penises imperiling this candidacy is just a little too on the nose for me, can I get a rewrite?” New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister wrote on Twitter.

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Though election day is Nov. 8, early voting is well underway. More than 17 million people — or more than 10 per cent of the expected electorate — have already cast ballots. It is unclear how much another chapter in a long-running controversy might affect voting preferences at this late stage.

“One consistent aspect of the hyper-polarized 2016 election: we’ve constantly overrated the impact of every ‘bombshell’ on the polls,” Cook Political Report editor Dave Wasserman wrote on Twitter.

Comey had appeared to close the case in July, when he rebuked Clinton as “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information as secretary of state but recommended against criminal charges.

He did not say Friday that Clinton had committed wrongdoing. Rather, in a letter to Congress, he said investigators would “review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information” and “assess their importance to our investigation.”

“Although the FBI cannot assess whether or not this material may be significant, and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work, I believe it is important to update your committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony,” Comey concluded.

The announcement undercuts Trump’s evidence-free contention that the FBI, like many other government entities, is a corrupt arm of the Clinton campaign. But it is far worse for Clinton, and ends her hopes of cruising to victory without another major hurdle.

“The system might not be as rigged as I thought,” Trump said at a rally in New Hampshire.

The timing of Comey’s declaration, and its lack of specificity, drew immediate criticism from Clinton allies and some non-partisan analysts. Even Republican Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, wrote on Twitter, “Why is FBI doing this just 11 days before the election?”

Trump had for months hammered Clinton for her decision to set up an insecure private email account in the basement of her New York home, rather than use a standard State Department account, and her subsequent destruction of thousands of emails from it. At the second presidential debate, he promised that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her “situation,” because “there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”

Weiner, the subject of a new documentary on the sexting-related failure of his 2013 run for New York City mayor, has long served as a Trump punching bag. Last year, then without evidence, Trump had linked Weiner to the email controversy.

“It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails. Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world,” he wrote on Twitter. “Huma Abedin, the top aide to Hillary Clinton and the wife of perv sleazebag Anthony Wiener, was a major security risk as a collector of info.”

Comey’s letter had an immediate impact on stock and currency markets as investors reacted to the perceived decline in Clinton’s fortunes. The S&P 500 declined about 1 per cent; the Mexican peso, perceived to be threatened by Trump’s promised tariffs, declined nearly 2 per cent.

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