WASHINGTON — The presidential campaign was rocked on Friday after federal law enforcement officials said that emails pertinent to the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server were discovered on a computer belonging to Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide.

In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said the emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, which law enforcement officials said was an F.B.I. investigation into illicit text messages from Mr. Weiner to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, is married to Huma Abedin, the top aide.

Mr. Comey's letter said that the F.B.I. would review the emails to determine if they improperly contained classified information, which is tightly controlled by the government. Senior law enforcement officials said that it was unclear if any of the emails were from Mrs. Clinton’s private server. And while Mr. Comey said in his letter that the emails “appear to be pertinent,” the F.B.I. had not yet examined them. </s> Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former New York congressman, is officially a free man.

The 54-year-old was seen leaving a Bronx halfway house at 6am on Tuesday morning which marked the final day of his 21-month sentence for having illicit contact with a 15-year-old girl.

His messages to the girl were exposed by DailyMail.com in September 2016.

On Tuesday, Weiner told reporters upon his departure that he hoped to get back to my family and make up for some lost time.'

'I hope to be able to live a life of integrity and service, and I’m glad this chapter of my life is behind me,' he said.

He was released from prison in February but has been living in the halfway house since then.

It is unclear where he will now go.

He and wife Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Clinton's top aides, had filed for divorce bu she has since withdrawn her request.

The status of their relationship is unknown.

Since being released, Weiner has been touting a book deal and asking for investors for a marijuana business.

He told one potential investor that the 'sexual stuff shouldn't matter'.

The 'stuff' he referred to were explicit text messages he exchanged with a 15-year-old girl while he was married in September 2016.

Among them was one text which read: 'I would bust that tight p***y so hard you would leak and limp for a week.'

He originally made contact with the girl on Twitter.

Since being released from prison in February, he has spent his days trying to get a book deal.

Sources told The New York Post last month that there was zero interest in it from publishers.

The sexting scandal was revealed during the fever pitch of the 2016 presidential elections and was the reason James Comey, the former FBI director, reopened the case into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server days before the polls opened.

While investigating Weiner's sexts, law enforcement agents seized computers from his home including his wife's.

It revealed that she had been using the laptop to work on behalf of Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

Abedin has said nothing since the scandal broke. She and Weiner have one son together.

In May 2017, she filed for divorce but the pair withdrew it in January this year. </s> Huma Abedin has filed for divorce from former Rep. Anthony Weiner, a move she made prior to Weiner pleading guilty Friday to transferring obscene material to a minor, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Abedin, a top aide to former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, was not present at Friday’s hearing.

A message left with a representative for Abedin seeking comment Friday morning was not returned.

At the hearing Friday, Weiner accepted responsibility for his conduct. “I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse,” he said through pauses and bouts of tears in an emotional statement. “I entered intensive treatment, found the courage to take a moral inventory of my defects, and began a program of recovery and mental health treatment that I continue to follow every day.”

As part of the plea agreement, Weiner, 52, will register as a sex offender and also will have to forfeit his iPhone, surrender his passport and continue mental health treatment. He is also barred from having any contact with the minor.

“Today, former Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted and pled guilty to sending sexually explicit images and directions to engage in sexual conduct to a girl he knew to be 15 years old,” acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim of the Southern District of New York said in a statement. “Weiner’s conduct was not only reprehensible, but a federal crime, one for which he is now convicted and will be sentenced.”

The government recommended between 21 and 27 months imprisonment, which Weiner’s counsel agreed to, though ultimately it is up to a judge to decide.
Law enforcement officials say the emails in question were found during the course of an investigation into illicit texts sent to a fifteen year old girl by former Congressman Anthony Weiner, on electronic devices formerly shared by Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin.