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FBI finds no case against Hillary Clinton

The Clinton campaign has been boosted in the final stretch of the presidential race with the FBI deciding there is no case against Ms Clinton based on the latest probe of her emails.

FBI Director James Comey said early on Monday morning (AEST) that the agency had not changed its conclusion that there was no case to bring against Ms Clinton for her handling of classified material via her private email server.

“Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation,” Mr Comey said in a letter to lawmakers.

“During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

“I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time.”

The Clinton campaign said in a statement it was “glad the matter is resolved”.

“We’re glad to see that (Mr Comey) has found, as we were confident that he would, that he has confirmed the conclusions he reached in July,” director of communications Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement.

The news relates to the investigation which Mr Comey announced last week that the FBI was reviewing more messages in its investigation into Ms Clinton.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said their campaign had been validated in its belief that nothing would change.

Trump fires back

The Trump campaign was unbowed and swift to fire back, predictably slamming Mr Comey and the agency over the outcome and refusing to resile from its repeated allegations of Ms Clinton’s criminality.
In Michigan, Mr Trump called Clinton “the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency of the United States”.
“Well, you have to understand it’s a rigged system and she’s protected,” Mr Trump said at another rally in Minnesota.

Mr Trump’s spokesman Jason Miller told CNN soon after the decision on Sunday evening (US time): “We thought that Director Comey and the FBI were wrong when they made their initial recommendation in July, and we think that they’re wrong now.”

His combative campaign manager Kellyanne Conway took the same line, alleging Mr Comey and the FBI had mishandled the investigation.

Watch Kellyanne Conway’s interview on MSNBC

Markets respond positively to FBI decision

US stocks jumped and the US dollar and Mexican peso soared after the FBI’s announcement.

The latest FBI review of the emails had rattled financial markets and so the latest news triggered a relief rally.

The news boosted US S&P 500 Index futures 1.2 per cent, a gain that is likely to snap the nine-day losing streak in the US stock index – its longest in more than 35 years.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2 per cent as Australian shares gained 0.7 per cent.

Japan’s Nikkei looks set to gain 1.5 per cent based on Chicago-traded futures.

In the currency market, the dollar rose as much as 1.4 per cent against the yen and last stood at 103.96 yen, up 0.8 per cent from late US levels while the euro dropped 0.5 per cent to $US1.1089.

The biggest winner was the Mexican peso, which has acted as something of a bellwether of sentiment as Trump’s proposed policies are considered to be deeply negative for the country.

The peso rose 2.2 per cent to 18.61 to the dollar, hitting its highest level since Oct 26.

  • with AAP
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