Democratic campaign says the timing of new tweets related to the Clinton Foundation is ‘odd’ amid the FBI director’s recent email revelations

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The FBI is struggling to explain the sudden re-activation of a long-dormant Twitter account which came back to life 10 days before the election and began linking to documents related to the William J Clinton Foundation.

'The FBI is Trumpland': anti-Clinton atmosphere spurred leaks, sources say Read more

The bureau refused to confirm or deny reports that its own office of professional responsibility is investigating the account.

FBI Records Vault (@FBIRecordsVault) William J. Clinton Foundation: This initial release consists of material from the FBI's files related to the Will... https://t.co/Y4nz3aRSmG

The account’s reactivation comes when the agency is already under intense scrutiny, following hot on the heels of FBI director James Comey’s unprecedented letter to Congress announcing the possible discovery of new Clinton emails. Comey claimed to have discovered new material on a computer shared by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, the disgraced former congressman Anthony Wiener.

And on Thursday, multiple sources told the Guardian that the FBI was so anti-Clinton that one described it as “Trumpland”, raising further questions about the bureau’s motivations in reactivating the account.

Brian Fallon, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign, tweeted that the timing of the FBI account’s reactivation was “odd”, asking: “Will FBI be posting docs on Trump’s housing discrimination in ‘70s?”.

Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd.

Will FBI be posting docs on Trump's housing discrimination in '70s?https://t.co/uJMMzX6rtI

Asked why the bureau had decided to start tweeting at that moment, a spokesperson for the FBI said:

The FBI’s Records Management Division receives thousands of FOIA requests annually which are processed on a first in, first out (FIFO) basis. By law, FOIA materials that have been requested three or more times are posted electronically to the FBI’s public reading room shortly after they are processed. Per the standard procedure for FOIA, these materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI’s public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures.

Notable by its omission from the statement, which was sent to multiple news outlets, is any mention of why the account chose to be reactivated just a few days before a highly contentious election.

According to the bureau, the feed was programmed to automatically update with the results of requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and that it had been dormant because of a glitch.

Asked for more details, another bureau spokesperson was unable to clarify why the glitch was fixed at that moment, or why documents targeting the Clintons were among the first to emerge.

At first, the spokesperson said “the system is automatic and electronic”, claimed there was “no wiggle-room” and that the system “doesn’t allow for human interaction or human perspectives as to the explosiveness of the information – it just goes when it goes”.

However, when pressed the spokesperson admitted that the system was not, in fact, entirely automated. “I’m not saying that there are definitely [not] human crafted Twitter items that come out of there,” he said.

Asked to say definitively whether a human being looked over the tweets before they were sent or not, the spokesperson said that he would ask a colleague to contact the Guardian with more information.