Most bizarre twist ever?

[AI Wessex]

I'm still not getting your point.  What I'm reading this morning is that agents in the FBI and leadership in the DoJ are furious with him for sending the letter last week.  I agree that he didn't have any good choices, because there was a high likelihood that somebody in the FBI *might* have leaked the news this week, which would have cast a partisan spell over him.  In that case, the sooner he did it the less overall impact it would be likely to have.  That doesn't mean him sending the letter was the right thing to do, however.

[AI Wessex]

Well, now things are moving into the realm of the bizarre:

An FBI Twitter account that had been dormant for over a year puzzled political observers on Tuesday by sending out a tweet linking to records from a long-closed case involving what was then known as the William J. Clinton Foundation.

An FBI list of documents recently added to the public vault states that this material, which related to former President Bill Clinton’s pardoning of Marc Rich, an international commodities trader indicted on tax evasion charges, was released on October 31. NBC's Pete Williams reported that the documents were the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request and were released “under normal guidelines”:

Yet the timing of the tweet struck many as odd, since the FBI Records Vault Twitter account had sent no messages from Oct. 8, 2015-Oct. 30, 2016. Suddenly, on Sunday, a flood of new tweets went out with links to records released over the course of 2016, including FBI files on Donald Trump’s father, Fred, and retired CIA director David Petraeus.

This head-scratching account reactivation came just two days after FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that the agency was looking into more emails potentially tied to its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
...
An FBI spokesman did not immediately respond Tuesday to TPM's request for comment.

[AI Wessex]

FBI Director James B. Comey notified key members of Congress Sunday afternoon that after reviewing all of the newly discovered Hillary Clinton emails the agency stands by its original findings against recommending charges.

Comey wrote that investigators had worked “around the clock” to review all the emails found on a device used by former congressman Anthony Weiner that had been sent to or from Clinton and that “we have not changed our conclusions expressed in July.”

Sadly, the damage was already done.

[rightleft22]

what a mess

[D.W.]

I don't expect the whole thing to cause much damage to Hillary.  That tiny fraction of people who would have voted for her but turned away at the last moment because of the FBI release are the same tiny fraction that will now sway back that she's again skated on through the "crisis". 

What it DID accomplish, is to divert attention away from down ballot work and back towards Hillary's own campaign.  That may prove significant tomorrow.

[DonaldD]

The more likely effect is on turnout, rather than on the number of Clinton's supporters themselves, and secondarily on swaying normally dependable Republican voters to support Trump and drop Johnson - and that is less likely to switch back at this stage.

There was a drop in Johnson support coincident to the news of the Weiner emails, so it is not outside the realm of the possible.

[Greg Davidson]

I think that Comey's actions depressed Clinton votes by 2%-3% (she'll still win). But it also depressed the down-ballot votes by a similar amount and it took the media oxygen out of the room that prevented the Democrats' final argument tying Republicans to an unpopular Trump.

My guess at the most likely outcome is that it will cost the Democrats 2-3 seats in the Senate so that we have a 50-50 tie, and it also cost about 10-15 seats in the house so that the Democrats will only gain about 5-10 seats.

My one caveat on this prediction is that we have never had an election in recent times with such disproportionate efforts on GOTV between the two parties, so there is an outside chance that the Democrats narrowly capture those larger gains due to a 2-3% advantage from converting leaners into votes.

[scifibum]

I think it's quite plausible that Comey flipped the result.  I'm still not too mad at him - he would have been pilloried and demonized either way - but the renewed energy on the email server issue probably depressed and demotivated just enough Clinton supporters.  The margins in MI and PA were razor thin.

[D.W.]

With hindsight, maybe this was a deciding factor.  Doesn't really forgive the false sense of security I and pretty much every blue leaning voter I know felt going into last night...

[scifibum]

I've heard that local GOTV efforts were redirected to phone banks to try to swing Iowa instead of within WI/MI/PA.  We felt way too safe.  The polls...next time round, I think every state is a swing state and the home stretch campaign spending and GOTV is going to be much higher. 

[Pete at Home]

For amusement some time, flip back 15 months to all the Clintonistas who were insisting that the GOP had to take Trump as their candidate ...