my next guest is cnn senior law enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. he has incite into this. what is your take, on the new timeline that we know the fbi knew of the existence of thousands of e-mails. they didn't know what they say, but didn't tell congress they even existed until friday. >> i think, poppy, they were trying to determine how many messages they had and the metadata about who transmitted it, what servers did they go through, at least some basic information. the two teams of investigators, the e-mail team and the anthony weiner team, collaborated and said, hey, what do you think? the team doing the weiner case referred to the e-mail team and said, what do you think? we'd like you to look at these. i think it took them a long time to actually get into looking at some of the metadata. we don't know -- they would have had permission from weiner and/or search warrants and subpoenas to look at his information. when they find her information on there, that creates a dilemma. does he have the right to say, that's my machine. if her stuff is on there, too bad. you can loo

i want to talk about this with former fbi assistant director, tom fuentes. tom, we got some details from evan perez on fbi director comey's decision to alert lawmakers reviewing these new e-mails related to clinton's server. one official said that comey didn't even seek the approval of justice officials. instead, he made an independent decision to go against this l g long-standing policy that they would not comment on these issues within 60 days of an election. did this decision, in your opinion, did it go against normal protocol? >> christi, good morning. he had already gone against normal protocol on july 5th when he made a public announcement, really preempting the prosecutors at the department of justice, saying that we want to close the case and no reasonable prosecutor would take this case forward. so that was already a breach in normal protocol. and when he testified two days later on the hill, he promised congress that if there was anything significant development, he would inform them. he would let them know if something came up. and in this case, i

the fbi director and whether these e-mails should have all been released beforehand, because even tom fuentesarlier in the show said and i want to quote here, it's been like a scavenger hunt, meaning trying to get all of these e-mails out of the hillary clinton camp. who looks worse at this point in time, is it the fbi director who can't seem to get a break from either party or is it hillary clinton? >> you know, i think they both do. for two reasons, one, i think that director comey has been putting a terrible situation. he has as law enforcement official who is nonpartisan and who has a terrific reputation here in washington, d.c., has had to navigate these very choppy waters between a very contentious presidential race. so, you know, a lot of people were mad as michael noted, specifically democrats when he came out and gave a news conference rather republicans when he came out and gave a news conference earlier this year and said he wasn't going to press charges and of course we've now seen the flip what is comey doing, how could he do this 11 days out, ten days out today? having said that

it, using your words there as the impetus for my next question, our cnn law enforcement analyst, tom fuentes, former assistant director of the fbi, says that this essentially comes down to the clintons and in this case maybe huma abedin not being as forthcoming that they should have been that there has been a constant drip drip over the last year and a half, that all of this should have been turned over to the fbi. your response to that is what? >> well, it's my opinion that the fbi probably had these documents in the beginning. there is nothing in the letter or anything that has been said to say that they have not reviewed them prior or that they have not had it. i think that you are making an assumption that this is new information. i can't make that assumption. >> director comey says the fbi cannot assess whether or not this material may be significant but he says that they appear to be pertinent to the investigation. let me put up the numbers from the latest fox news poll where it shows the numbers as it relates to honest and trustworthy -- honesty and trustworthy. 30%, which is a record

next to gentleman we have, with senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi assistant director, tom fuentes mark preston. good morning to both of you. good morning. you just heard there from chris, tom, that both campaigns are calling for the fbi to release what they know. clinton saying, quote, release all the information that it is, speaking of the fbi. what's the likelihood, at all, that this is going to be released in the next ten days. >> i think the likelihood is very slim, that that would happen. now, again, this has been an extraordinary case from the beginning, but i don't see that happening. i don't know that they'll have the results that they want soon enough to be able to do something like that. and they're not used to providing incremental information about an ongoing investigation, so i just don't see that happening. >> so the trump campaign, mark, sees this as a boon for them. now, the fbi doesn't know if these e-mails are relevant, if they contain classified information, but, you know, this e-mail saga has been going on for a year and a half now. have they not already made u

david gergen and tom fuentes former fbi assistant director. mark preston, what do you make of her strategy? this is going on offense. come on fbi. you say you got something. put out there or i have nothing to say. >> and our reporting is telling us in fact it was a shared device that was huma was using with her husband anthony weiner. i suspect they do have an idea of what humaed a forwa ed had f the devices. so a very good defense is a strong offense. and the fact of the matter is this probably, there is a chance this doesn't necessarily touch hillary clinton other than the fact that one of her aides might have done something that was wrong. >> can i just add? we can argue as the clever strategy to take the offense. one thing we know almost for sure is that the fbi is not going to release anymore information for the next 11 days. because this is an issue about classified information. classified information -- >> -- throw them out there then the world could see classified e-mails. >> right. and then what they have to do first is go to the fbi,

senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and former fbi assistant director, tom fuentes, how does the clinton campaign, gloria, handle this e-mail issue which came up now a week and a day, very, very strongly, before the election? >> as you saw last friday, she first came out and raised questions about what fbi director had done. now they have had their suggest gi surrogates powerfully and in large numbers come out and complain about it including former attorney general eric holder, who while she a friend friend -- he is a friend of comey's said it was a huge mistake. a breach of protocol, shouldn't have stated his opinion of the case back in july. the original sin, and that he, what he did this time was -- was wrong. the justice department needed to be more involved, and as for hillary herself, what she is doing is continuing on the campaign trail. you will see it today, talking about donald trump as if this doesn't exist, as trying to disqualify him as she does as commander in chief on his temperament, calling him divisive and dangerous, because she does better when talking about donald tru

adam schiff / (d-ca) house intelligence committee / "this week"/abc 1:41 - 1:58 tom fuentes / former fbi assistant director / cnn2:07 - 2:14 rep. lamar smith / (r-tx) house government oversight committee / september 28catherine herridge / fox news chief intelligence correspondent (on- cam fox news tag) ----------------------------- ----------------------------- ----live topa government source confirms that an analysis of the metadata on the anthony weiner computer has turned up "positive hits for state.gov accounts and clinton's emails, adding the numbers are quote astonishing -- with the wa s play -- that's what led fbi director james comey to reboot the fbi email case.(take pkg) after a subpoena was issued in late september, fox news was told fbi investigators began combing through anthony weiner's computer in the separate, sexting investigation. as they sifted through the records, investigators found emails from clinton aide huma abedin, weiner's estranged wife, who had access to the laptop. the fbi team then got new authorization to do a deeper dive on the metadata, and that was

tom fuentes. thanks for being here. i just want your assessment of what comey has done. was he right to come forward to send that letter to congress say look, we found another device, some e-mails. we don't know if they're pertinent or not, but we want you to know we're looking at them. zpl i think he kind of painted himself into a corner because of the july 5th press conference. that was unprecedented and to have the fbi director determine that it shouldn't even be referred to the department of justice, you know, nobody in the fbi in my former colleagues and many still in the bureau, just know one understood why that was. when they heard his presentation, they thought it merited an announcement that charges were recommended. if any announcement be made, but they thought the package should have gone to the department of justice for a final decision and he cut that off and said we recommend closing it. once he did that, there was no choice. >> frankly, lor ta lynch said previously, we will defer to the fbi on this. >> she did, but she could have deferred to and that was w

i'm also joined by cnn senior law enforcement analyst tom fuentes, also former assistant director of fbi. welcome to both of you. tom, sources tell us abedin does not know how her e-mails landed on her husband's computer. how would you characterize that as an investigator? >> i can't confirm that she said anything to them. so i really don't know about that. >> so is it change that -- that -- because sources are telling cnn she doesn't know how her e-mails got on her husband's compute per so how -- isn't that -- is that strange in your mind? >> well i think it's strange, period. but again, this whole thing, and all of the aspects of director comey sending that letter friday, we really have to back track. everything about this case in the last four months has been very unusual. starting with bill clinton getting on the airplane with loretta lynch. as a result of that, and the uproar over that, she basically didn't recuse herself and say my deputy attorney general will be in the decisions make, or senior career prosecutor that the department of justice will be doing it, she deferred it c

we saw cnn's tom fuentes last night, former fbi agent, on tv. he essentially said that comey and the fbi were -- have been super sensitive over the last couple months about what they wereceived were ongoing attacks on the credibility of the institution of the fbi since they came to the conclusion that hillary clinton did not have any criminal intent. and those attacks got to them. and what i think is that really, those weren't media attacks. those were really republican attacks. and what i think happened is, you know, the republicans were sort of their base. their strongest supporters, and it bothered them. so i disagree with matt a little bit. i think they kind of went overboard where it's very unusual, as we know, for them to report while there might be something we don't know anything, so here, we're going to be talking about it this close to the election. you know, and that's why we saw the attorney general say that this was a mistake to do. i think that what we have is the media now and social media affecting the decisions of how our invest