SELMA, North Carolina — Donald Trump suggested that the Justice Department is preventing the FBI from releasing relevant information in its investigation into Hillary Clinton during a speech on Thursday.
"She’s protected by the Department of Justice, and what's going on in our country this has never happened, ever happened before," Trump told his audience at his third rally of the day. "And the FBI is in there, they're doing their job and they’re not allowed to be doing their job, what’s going on is a disgrace."
"Hillary created the server to shield her criminal activity and her corrupt pay-for-play schemes where she sold her office as Secretary of State to donors and special interests," Trump said. "And the FBI has it all. They have it all."
"They're not allowed to do anything with it because her protector is the Department of Justice," Trump said. "We’ll have to change the name of the Department of Justice."
Trump's remarks come at a time when internal divisions in the nation's law enforcement community over how to handle investigations of and relating to Hillary Clinton are spilling into public view. It was recently reported that Justice Department officials urged FBI Director James Comey not to send his recent letter to Congress informing them of the discovery of more emails relevant to the investigation of Clinton's private email server less than two weeks before Election Day. Subsequent leaks have detailed, in at times conflicting reports, investigations that concern Anthony Weiner’s alleged sexting of an underage girl, and the past investigative activity around the Clinton Foundation.
The FBI in particular has been the source of many leaks in the firestorm that followed the letters, with a picture emerging of both internal disagreement in the bureau about how to handle Clinton investigations, and disagreement with the Department of Justice.
One current FBI agent told the Guardian that the FBI is "Trumpland," with many agents supporting Trump.
Trump has made the FBI probe into a main feature of his stump speeches, mentioning it at every rally as part of his case against Clinton as "Crooked Hillary."
Some polls have showed the race tightening in the days since Comey's letter.