[tropo]

That "devastating blow" was an undesired side effect.

By reopening the investigation, the FBI was able to seize control of Anthony Weiner's laptop, which was being held by the NYPD.

Had info about that been released, as it was going to be, it would have been immediately devastating. Reopening the investigation must have seemed less harmful to Clinton.

[bluescarni]

What?

The problem was not the re-opening of the investigation (which the FBI could've done without informing or asking anyone), it was the fact that Comey decided on his own to inform the public (via congress, and against established department policy) that the investigation was being re-opened.

Weiner laptop was seized because of the underage sexting, what makes you think that this information would have been immediately devastating for Clinton? Weiner's sexcapades were well known before that, it was just another chapter in that saga.

Sorry but what you are implying just does not make any logical sense.

[tropo]

The laptop was seized due to his sexcapades, then discovered to have much more interesting data.

Anthony Weiner's wife is Huma Abedin. She was deputy chief of staff to Clinton. Somehow, his laptop had come to contain lots of classified emails to/from Clinton. It is simply not believable that those emails were adequately studied in the available time. This has even been admitted in responses to FOIA requests, with the government claiming in court that more time is needed.

[bluescarni]

> The laptop was seized due to his sexcapades, then discovered to have much more interesting data. > Anthony Weiner's wife is Huma Abedin. She was deputy chief of staff to Clinton. Somehow, his laptop had come to contain lots of classified emails to/from Clinton.

I am aware of the facts (and Abedin "was" his wife). The FBI eventually established that the "new" emails were either personal or duplicate of already known emails.

You seem to be implying (correct me if I am wrong) that:

- Abedin was using Weiner's laptop to write the most "damaging" and "interesting" emails to Clinton,

- somehow, the emails sent to/from Weiner's laptop escaped months of extensive investigations by the FBI,

- somehow, the emails got erased from everywhere else apart from from Weiner's laptop and could be found only there (that's not how email works),

- somehow, in their criminal conspiracy, Clinton/Abedin forgot that Abedin had 650'000 (according to official reports) emails from the Clinton campaign on her husband's laptop - they erased all the damaging information from everywhere else but somehow forgot Wiener's computer (which she must have used extensively to accumulate that number of messages),

- 10 days of "around the clock" work by FBI agents couldn't have possibly established that most of 650k message where either "personal or duplicative" in nature[0].

Sorry, but that's just way too much mental gymnastic for my taste.

Again, the idea that Comey's public re-opening of the official investigation was somehow less damaging, from the point of view of public perception, than unsupported and unsubstantiated leaks from NYPD just does not hold water.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-director-comey-s...