Former FBI Agent on Reopened Criminal Investigation: ‘Agency Would be Remiss in not Moving Forward’

The FBI routinely reopens criminal investigation when it discovers significant new evidence, says Nancy Savage, a former FBI agent who is now executive director of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.

“That’s pretty much SOP — I’ve done it myself many a time — if you develop new information,” she told Breitbart News from her office in Dumfries, Va. “There’s no double jeopardy issue for someone who hasn’t been charged,” said Savage, who retired from the FBI after 35 years in the agency.

If you develop further evidence of a crime as such, and it is relevant to the charges, you have to open the case so you can start investigating again, and that’s obviously what’s happened … it would be a requirement to do so … [and] if this other information is presented to you, the agency would be remiss in not moving forward

In a letter to Congress on Friday, FBI director James Comey said the FBI has learned about the existence of more emails linked to the FBI’s investigation of the Hillary Clinton’s home-built email network. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed by on this yesterday, 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,” Comey said.

Media reports on Friday say the investigation has been reopened following the discovering of incriminating emails on phones used by her top aide, Huma Abedin and by Abedin’s husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner.

New evidence has to be related to the prior investigation, Savage said. The evidence:

would have to be substantive enough that it would either relate to the charges from before, or another charge … [and] of a nature that is different — and of some weight — than had been in the investigative files or it would be determined ‘Oh, we’ve seen that information before.’

Still, this set of investigations is closely linked to a presidential candidate, Savage said, so “it is an unusual situation.”