Comey May Have Messed Up His Testimony on Huma Abedin

FBI chief James Comey went before Congress last week and made the remarkable assertion that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin regularly forwarded Clinton emails, some of them classified, to husband Anthony Weiner so he could print them out. "Hundreds and thousands," he testified. Not so much, reports ProPublica. The news organization, which is working on an investigative piece about how the FBI handled the Clinton emails, says Abedin forwarded maybe a "handful" of emails to Weiner, none of which had been designated as classified at the time. (That designation could have changed later, though it's not clear whether any of these were among the 12 classified emails that Comey said were found on Weiner's laptop.)

ProPublica says it's possible that most of the Clinton emails on Weiner's laptop ended up there because of automatic backups of Abedin's BlackBerry, not through forwards. Neither Abedin nor Weiner responded to requests for comments for the story, but last fall Abedin's lawyer said she had no idea how the emails had gotten there. The FBI is now trying to figure out how to resolve Comey's inaccuracies, says ProPublica. The agency was reportedly working on a clarification letter to Congress, but that idea has been shelved for now. Clinton thinks all this swayed the election, but Gizmodo sees a smaller-picture lesson for everyone: "Be careful with automatic backups." (More James Comey stories.)