With just a week to go in the most bitter American election campaign anyone can remember, Hillary Clinton has been damaged by an FBI decision to re-open the investigation into her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State. This might not match Donald Trump's latest
Editorial: A cloud returns on Clinton's campaign
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Clinton is still comfortably ahead in the states she needs for victory and, if elected, she will have reason to be grateful this investigation was made public before voting day, not after. A defeated Trump would make a meal of it had the new investigation been kept quiet before the election. It would feed his need to absolve himself in his own mind of any sense of failure and rejection. As it is, he has made the most of the news, claiming it endorses everything he has said about "crooked Hillary".
It does nothing of the kind, though it does mean she would be elected under the cloud of an FBI investigation. Right now, in the heat of the campaign, that cloud seems darker than it will once the election is over. Even if Trump is elected it is hard to believe he would pursue her case with the vindictive fervour he has expressed in his campaign.
Her carelessness, as the FBI called it, has been exaggerated by opponents in the way these things tend to be in elections everywhere. In fact, the email story has been the most conventional element of this most unconventional campaign.