NYT: FBI director's letter broke pattern

The FBI director's making public a new trove of emails connected to Hillary Clinton on Friday departed from decisions in recent months to keep quiet two separate investigations, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

James Comey has come under criticism for his letter informing Congress about the bureau's decision to reopen an inquiry into the Democratic presidential candidate's emails after a new trove of hundreds of thousands of emails were found on a laptop taken from Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton's aide Huma Abedin, in a separate inquiry.

Those emails should be reviewed because they could be relevant to an earlier probe into Clinton's use of a private server to send emails while she was secretary of state, Comey said in his letter.