Johnson calls on FBI for more transparency as Clinton email controversy heats up

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called on FBI Director James Comey in a letter Friday to release more information about the new developments with Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Johnson’s request for transparency from the FBI’s investigation came after Comey sent a letter Oct. 28 to Congress saying that new emails had been discovered that were “pertinent to the investigation” of Clinton’s email server.

In his letter to Comey, Johnson calls for more information and transparency about the emails’ relevance before the Nov. 8 election.

"There are important questions about the nature and source of these new emails, when and how the FBI learned of them, what investigative steps the FBI is taking to obtain these emails, and the role of the Justice Department in the process," Johnson wrote.

The email server controversy reached a standstill in July when Comey announced the FBI’s recommendation that Clinton not be prosecuted.

Comey explained his decision by saying that although evidence proved classified information had been sent between Clinton and her advisors, there was no evidence to prove these emails were sent intentionally. The scandal now appears back in headlines with almost a week until the Nov. 8 election.

The FBI will examine new emails discovered Friday belong to Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin. These messages were found on a seized laptop owned by Abedin’s estranged husband Anthony Weiner. Weiner is currently under investigation for sending inappropriate text messages to a 15-year-old girl, and officials seized his laptop to gather more information for that investigation.

On Monday, the agency began sifting through the emails to determine if they held any classified information. If they do, the agency will look for evidence to see if those emails were purposefully concealed from investigators during the original examination back in July.

It is unclear if the emails found on Weiner’s laptop are duplicates of the tens of thousands of emails originally included in the initial investigation. Until the FBI finishes their probe of Weiner’s laptop and Abedin’s email, the relevance of the newly discovered emails remains murky.

In response to the recent developments, Clinton challenged the FBI Saturday to “release all the information it has” and criticized the timing of the investigation.