A search warrant that triggered the reopening of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server in the days before the election was finally made public Tuesday.
The FBI sought to gain further access to a silver Dell Inspiron laptop that was shared by ex-New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and estranged wife Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide.
Emails related to Clinton were found on the laptop in an unrelated investigation into allegations of Weiner sexting with a 15-year-old girl.
In total, 21 pages of documents, including the Oct. 30 search warrant, application and an affidavit, were released with redactions following a court order Monday.
Neither Abedin nor Weiner are identified in the papers but Clinton’s name and references to the criminal investigation into her email use are mentioned throughout.
Abedin’s name appears to be blacked out in several references to correspondence with Clinton.
In an affidavit, an FBI agent, whose name was also blacked out, said there was probable cause to search the computer’s one terabyte hard drive because the agency knew Abedin and Clinton exchanged classified emails on a based on its previous investigation.
“The subject laptop was never authorized for the storage or transmission of classified or national defense information,” the agent wrote.
“A complete forensic analysis and review of the subject laptop will also allow the FBI to determine if there is any evidence of computer intrusion into the subject laptop and to determine if classified information was accessed by unauthorized users or transferred to any other unauthorized systems.”
Less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that the agency was seeking a search warrant to see whether the emails on the laptop were related to Clinton’s private email server.
The warrant and related documents have been under seal since they were issued.
But on Monday, Manhattan federal court Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered that redacted versions would be unsealed after Los Angeles-based lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg petitioned to have them released.
In a statement, Schoenberg said he was “appalled” at the language in the warrant.
“I see nothing at all in the search warrant application that would give rise to probable cause, nothing that would make anyone suspect that there was anything on the laptop beyond what the FBI had already searched and determined not to be evidence of a crime, nothing to suggest that there would be anything other than routine correspondence between Secretary Clinton and her longtime aide Huma Abedin,” he said.
Two days before the election, Comey said the newfound emails did nothing to change his earlier position that Clinton should not be criminally charged — a move her team blamed for losing the election.