Washington (CNN)FBI Director James Comey erroneously told Congress last week tha

t former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin "forwarded hundreds and thousands" of
emails to her husband's laptop -- and the bureau is looking for a way to clean u
p his error, according to officials familiar with the matter.
According to Comey, Clinton's emails had been forwarded to the computer of Abedi
n's husband, former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. But US officials told CNN last
fall the majority of the thousands of emails reviewed by the FBI got to Weiner'
s computer via a backup system for Abedin's phone.
In Comey's testimony, however, he suggested "hundreds and thousands" of emails h
ad been deliberately sent directly from Abedin to Weiner's computer. While some
of those emails may have been sent directly from Huma in order to be printed, of
ficials told CNN, the number was far fewer than the amount Comey described.
Comey's testimony, which contained innaccuracies.
Comey's testimony, which contained innaccuracies. 01:44
Comey told Congress last Wednesday that Clinton's emails containing classified i
nformation were "somehow" being forwarded to Weiner by his wife, Abedin.
"Somehow, her emails were being forwarded to Anthony Weiner, including classifie
d information by (Clinton's) assistant, Huma Abedin," he said.
Asked by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz how Comey would handle an FBI agent who
forwarded "thousands of classified emails to his or her spouse," Comey replied,
"Well, there would be significant administrative discipline. I'm highly confiden
t they wouldn't be prosecuted. I'm also highly confident there would be discipli
ne."
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But there was no indication that Abedin "had a sense that what she was doing was
in violation of the law," Comey added, and investigators couldn't prove any sor
t of criminal intent.
The emails weren't marked as classified, though the FBI later found classified i
nformation contained in some emails recovered from Weiner's laptop.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the former secretary of state, compared Comey's st
atements to Clinton's marathon testimony at a 2015 hearing over the Benghazi ter
rorist attacks.
"Imagine for a moment if Hillary Clinton had said something this inaccurate when
she testified for 11 hours," Merrill tweeted Tuesday. Abedin declined to commen
t Tuesday.
Did Comey lose the election for Hillary? _00011820
Did Comey lose the election for Hillary? 04:30
ProPublica first reported the FBI's internal debate about whether to correct Com
ey's testimony at a Senate hearing.
The discovery of the emails last October prompted Comey to alert Congress in a l
etter, days before the presidential election, that the FBI had reopened its prob
e of Clinton's private email server.
Some Democrats and Clinton herself have blamed her election loss at least partly
on Comey's decision to update Congress about the newly found emails. In an inte
rview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour at a Women for Women International event in
New York last week, Clinton said she was "on the way to winning until a combina
tion of Jim Comey's letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in
the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off."
The FBI ended its new investigation into the emails two days before the election
, concluding that no charges should be brought against Clinton or anyone else.