He told lawmakers the investigative team briefed him on the information a day earlier, “and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”
He said the FBI could not yet assess whether the new material is significant and he could not predict how long it will take to complete “this additional work.”
We don't know much at this point. Clearly we're not going to get a grand jury convened before the election, let alone an indictment. And it's easy to speculate that this is ass-covering because Comey realizes he badly miscalculated the public's reaction to the whitewash that was the initial investigation.
One theory we can kick around: Is the "new information" story just a cover for the real reason, which is that Comey never liked having to whitewash what happened and he's decided now that he's not going to play ball anymore?
Or did they really find something new that they honestly had no idea existed before? If so, it must have been something awfully major in order for Comey at this point to backtrack on the public position he's staked out and defended come hell or high water.
Here's Donald Trump's reaction:
Things suddenly got velly intellesting with just over a week to go before the election.
Who saw this coming?