NEW YORK • The FBI has found new e-mails related to Mrs Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state, CBS News reported.
It is not known whether the e-mails are relevant to a case involving Mrs Clinton's private e-mail server, the network said, but the messages do not appear to be duplicates of e-mails the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has already reviewed, according to an unnamed US official cited by CBS News.
The e-mails were found on a laptop belonging to the estranged husband of her close aide Huma Abedin. The laptop and other devices, such as phones, belonging to Ms Abedin and her estranged husband Anthony Weiner were taken by the authorities as part of an investigation into whether he had exchanged illicit text messages with a 15-year-old girl. It is not clear how the e-mails got on to his computer.
The latest news on the e-mails comes as Mrs Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump squared off in do-or-die North Carolina with duelling rallies. Mrs Clinton unleashed top surrogates, including President Barack Obama, to bolster her case in a final push, while Mr Trump deployed wife Melania to soften his brash image.
North Carolina was suddenly in the eye of the political storm, with the candidates frantically criss-crossing the south-eastern state where they are locked at 46.4 per cent apiece.
The candidates' motorcades even passed each other on Thursday on the tarmac at the Raleigh-Durham airport ahead of their rival rallies.
"You've got to get everyone you know to come out and vote," Mrs Clinton implored supporters in Raleigh, where she was joined by her one-time primary adversary, Senator Bernie Sanders, and singer Pharrell Williams.
"The best way to repudiate the bigotry and the bluster and the bullying and the hateful rhetoric and discrimination is to show up with the biggest turnout in American history," Mrs Clinton said.
Mr Obama shuttled into Florida for fiery rallies aimed at turning out the Democratic base for Mrs Clinton in a must-win state for Mr Trump. "This will be a close race and you cannot take it for granted," Mr Obama warned supporters in Jacksonville, painting an apocalyptic vision of what Mr Trump would mean for American democracy.
Mrs Melania Trump, the Slovenian-born former model who could become America's first foreign-born first lady in two centuries, chose Pennsylvania on Thursday for her first solo campaign appearance. "He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn't he?" she said of Mr Trump's campaign.
The US presidential campaign was due to move back to Ohio and Pennsylvania yesterday. Mrs Clinton planned to highlight the economy in a speech in Pittsburgh, a campaign aide said. "She'll focus on the pressures facing women - who are either the sole or primary breadwinner in four out of 10 families - and working families, who are facing rising costs for everything from childcare to prescription drugs," the aide said.
Mrs Clinton planned to travel to Detroit afterwards and then Ohio.
Mr Trump was scheduled to visit New Hampshire, where many polls are showing a close race, before heading to Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Mr Trump has seized on the e-mail scandal that has plagued Mrs Clinton's campaign and which flared anew with last week's announcement by FBI director James Comey that the probe into her private e-mail server continues.
In a further twist, the FBI and US intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what US officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said.
US Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has referred one of the documents to the FBI for investigation on the grounds that his name and stationery were forged to appear authentic, some of the sources who had knowledge of that discussion said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
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