FBI agents investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state knew in early October that the tens of thousands of emails they found in a separate investigation of Anthony Weiner would be pertinent to the private email server investigation. Nevertheless, the agents waited weeks to inform FBI Director James Comey about the “newly discovered” emails. It is unclear why the Agents did not tell Comey sooner.

FBI Director James B. Comey was informed of the “newly discovered” emails Thursday, and sent his bombshell letter to certain members of Congress the next day telling them he thought the team should take “appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails.”

Comey’s letter ignited a political firestorm. Comey has been under intense criticism for the  timing of his letter. A public revelation in early October might have been less politically damaging for Hillary than one coming less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election.

As Patterico reported here, the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll released today found that 34 percent of likely voters are less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton because of the newly revealed emails.

after Comey’s revelation of the email the Washington Post-ABC News poll asked likely voters the following question:

The FBI has announced that it is reviewing additional e-mails in connection with its investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified information while she was secretary of state. Clinton said she did not mishandle classified information. Does this issue make you (more) likely to vote for Clinton, (less) likely to vote for Clinton, or does it make no difference in your vote?

The poll states that it was conducted October 25 – 28, but the results for that question were based on interviews conducted October 28-29 and have a margin of error of 5 percent, I assume because only 480 of the likely voters were asked that question. It will be interesting to see the results in the coming days as more of the respondents will have been asked that question.

And now we also know that the FBI does not yet have a warrant for, nor permission from Abedin, to access the newly revealed emails. Which really makes you wonder what the FBI agents who knew about these emails for weeks have been doing.

At least they haven’t yet given Abedin immunity for the contents of the computer as they did Cheryl Mills and company. But they are demonstrating why some say FBI stands for Famous But Incompetent.