Trump turns up heat over Clinton email probe
Donald Trump stepped up his attacks against Hillary Clinton, seeing to exploit the FBI decision to reopen an investigation into her emails as America's bruising election campaign heads into its final stretch.
Just 10 days before the country goes to the polls to elect either the former US secretary of state or the bombastic Republican billionaire, America's top cop James Comey has been thrust center stage.
The FBI director wrote to lawmakers on Friday, announcing that his agents are investigating a newly discovered trove of emails, renewing an enquiry that the Clinton campaign thought ended in July.
Campaigning in the western state of Colorado, which has been leaning toward Clinton, Trump denounced what he called his opponent's "criminal and illegal conduct," to chants of "Lock her up!"
"This is the biggest political scandal since Watergate, and it's everybody's deepest hope that justice at last will be beautifully delivered," Trump, told a later rally in Phoenix, Arizona.
While his opponent remains on course to be voted in as America's first female president at the ballot box on November 8, her campaign is furious that its momentum has slowed in the final straight.
Clinton campaigned hard in the key battleground state of Florida on Saturday, greeting thousands of supporters at a Jennifer Lopez concert in Miami after earlier demanding that Comey explain in detail why he had effectively reopened the inquiry declared complete in July.
In reality, it seems unlikely that much progress will be made in the investigation before polling day and few observers expect Clinton to face criminal charges.
Trump -- himself dogged by scandal over alleged sexual misconduct and accusations from at least 12 women -- has relished the email probe.
"Hillary Clinton's corruption is corrosive to the soul of our nation, and it must be stopped," the real estate tycoon said in Arizona.
On Saturday he also received the public endorsement of the father of 26-year-old aid worker, Kayla Mueller, who was kidnapped in Syria in August 2013 and killed in a 2015 coalition air strike.
- AFP