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 Remember when FBI Director James Comey threw a bomb into the election by announcing that the agency was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails? Remember his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about those emails, just last week? Well, his statements may have been wildly inaccurate and he’s apparently trying to figure out how to fix it. 
 
 
 
 Anthony Weiner, You Big Fucking Dick Former New York congressman Anthony Weiner should have been an amusing blip on the history of the… Read more 
 
 ProPublica, an independent, non-profit investigative journalism outfit with multiple Pulitzers, has a bombshell report that claims the FBI is scrambling to correct Comey’s misrepresentation of the emails found on Huma Abedin’s husband’s laptop. Abedin is married to Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who can’t stop sexting with strangers on Twitter. 
 
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 In his testimony, Comey claimed that Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Abedin, forwarded “hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband so that he could print them for her. He said that she made “a regular practice” of doing this and that 12 of the emails were classified. According to ProPublica’s sources, this isn’t exactly true. 
 
 The two sources, one of which is identified as being in “law enforcement”, claim that Comey exaggerated the FBI’s findings. Reportedly, “only a handful” of emails were forwarded to Weiner by Abedin. And now officials are saying that the various documents likely ended up on the laptop because of automatic backups from her BlackBerry. That explanation would fall in line with Abedin’s statement that she had no idea how the emails found their way onto Weiner’s laptop. And for the record, none of the 12 classified emails were marked classified at the time. 
 
 According to ProPublica’s sources, the FBI was planning to send a letter to Congress this week that would correct the record, but that plan has stalled for unknown reasons. 
 
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 When Comey testified, Senator Ted Cruz was baffled that he wouldn’t consider the forwarding of thousands of classified documents to be a crime. Comey clarified: 
 
 ...if I said that, I misspoke. She forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information. 
 
 Today, former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. When it was Ted Cruz’s time to ask her about Russian interference in the election, he elected to spend the bulk of his time asking Yates hypothetical questions about prosecuting someone who had done exactly what Comey testified Abedin was guilty of doing. 
 
 The gut-wrenching knowledge that Comey’s initial announcement about the emails may have gotten Donald Trump elected is bad enough. If he has misrepresented the FBI’s findings under sworn testimony after clearing all parties of wrongdoing, he’ll be in the running for the most hated man in America. 
 
 For the average Joe, this might simply serve as a reminder to be careful with automatic backups. 
 
 [ProPublica] ||||| FBI director James Comey generated national headlines last week with his dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining his “incredibly painful” decision to go public about the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. 
 
 Perhaps Comey’s most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin — Weiner’s wife and a top Clinton deputy — had made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton messages to her husband, “some of which contain classified information.” Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss. (Weiner’s laptop was seized after he came under criminal investigation for sex crimes, following a media report about his online relationship with a teenager.) 
 
 The New York Post plastered its story on the front page with a photo of an underwear-clad Weiner and the headline: “HARD COPY: Huma sent Weiner classified Hillary emails to print out.” The Daily News went with a similar front-page screamer: “HUMA ERROR: Sent classified emails to sext maniac Weiner.” 
 
 The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it. 
 
 FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do. 
 
 ProPublica is reporting a story on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton emails and raised questions with government officials last week about possible inaccuracies in Comey’s statements about Abedin. 
 
 It could not be learned how the mistake occurred. The FBI and Abedin declined ProPublica’s requests for comment on the director’s misstatements. How We’re Learning To Do Journalism Differently in the Age of Trump Here are four ideas we’ve used to guide our Trump administration coverage. 
 
 According to two sources familiar with the matter — including one in law enforcement — Abedin forwarded only a handful of Clinton emails to her husband for printing — not the “hundreds and thousands” cited by Comey. It does not appear Abedin made “a regular practice” of doing so. Other officials said it was likely that most of the emails got onto the computer as a result of backups of her BlackBerry. 
 
 It was not clear how many, if any, of the forwarded emails were among the 12 “classified” emails Comey said had been found on Weiner’s laptop. None of the messages carried classified markings at the time they were sent. 
 
 Comey’s Senate testimony about Abedin came as he offered his first public explanation for his decision to reveal the existence of the emails on Oct. 28, days ahead of the 2016 election and before FBI agents had examined them. 
 
 When agents obtained a search warrant that allowed them to read the messages, they turned out to be mostly duplicates of emails the bureau had obtained earlier in the investigation. Comey announced just before Election Day that nothing had changed in the Clinton case, which had been closed four months earlier without criminal charges. 
 
 During his testimony, Comey said that part of the reason for revealing the existence of the messages was that some appeared to fill an eight-week gap in records from early in Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Comey said the FBI viewed them as “the golden missing emails that would change this case” because they might provide insights into Clinton’s intent when she set up her private server. 
 
 Comey testified that investigators searching Weiner’s laptop in the days before the election also found that “somehow, her emails are being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classified information, by [Clinton’s] assistant, Huma Abedin.” Abedin, he later testified, “appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding emails to him, for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the Secretary of State.” 
 
 After Comey painted this troubling picture, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz demanded to know why Abedin and Weiner hadn’t been charged with mishandling classified information, calling the failure to do so “puzzling.” 
 
 “You said Ms. Abedin forwarded hundreds or thousands of classified emails to her husband on a non-government, non-classified computer,” said Cruz. “How is — how does that conduct not directly violate the statute?” 
 
 Comey offered a partial clarification, telling the Texas senator: “…if I said that, I misspoke. She forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information.” Comey agreed both Abedin and Weiner “potentially” might have committed a crime, but said the FBI found no basis for concluding either had acted with criminal intent. Comey said the FBI had been unable to discuss the matter with Weiner “because he has pending criminal problems of other sorts.” 
 
 Abedin’s lawyer issued a statement after Comey’s Oct. 28 letter, saying Abedin had no idea how her exchanges with Clinton got on Weiner’s laptop, and no idea that they were there.
– FBI chief James Comey went before Congress last week and made the remarkable assertion that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin regularly forwarded Clinton emails, some of them classified, to husband Anthony Weiner so he could print them out. "Hundreds and thousands," he testified. Not so much, reports ProPublica. The news organization, which is working on an investigative piece about how the FBI handled the Clinton emails, says Abedin forwarded maybe a "handful" of emails to Weiner, none of which had been designated as classified at the time. (That designation could have changed later, though it's not clear whether any of these were among the 12 classified emails that Comey said were found on Weiner's laptop.) ProPublica says it's possible that most of the Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop ended up there because of automatic backups of Abedin's BlackBerry, not through forwards. Neither Abedin nor Weiner responded to requests for comments for the story, but last fall Abedin's lawyer said she had no idea how the emails had gotten there. The FBI is now trying to figure out how to resolve Comey's inaccuracies, says ProPublica. The agency was reportedly working on a clarification letter to Congress, but that idea has been shelved for now. Clinton thinks all this swayed the election, but Gizmodo sees a smaller-picture lesson for everyone: "Be careful with automatic backups."