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ByJuliePaceand Jonathan Lemire TheAssociatedPress DADE CITY, FLA. Donald Trump could draw the United States into nu- clear war, Hillary Clin- ton warns. Clinton would plunge the country into a constitutional crisis, he says. As the caustic presi- dential race lurches to- ward the finish line, each candidate is aggressively casting the other as a cat- astrophic choice for the White House. Making an affirmative case about their own qualifications and vision has become a secondary priority. It's an ugly conclusion to a contest featuring two of the most unpop- ular presidential candi- dates in modern Ameri- can politics. The sexual assault accusations that have trailed Trump in the race's closing weeks and a new FBI review into Clin- ton's email habits seem likely to only reinforce the public's negative per- ceptions, leaving the can- didates to essentially ar- gue to voters that they're the best of two unappeal- ing options. "I would rather be here talking about nearly any- thing else," Clinton said Tuesday during a rally in Florida where she lev- eled a series of attacks on Trump's character and preparedness for the White House. "But I can't just talk about all of the good things we want to do." Indeed, Clinton's speeches in this final full week of campaigning have overwhelmingly fo- cused on Trump. On Mon- day, she warned against giving Trump the author- ity to order a nuclear at- tack, bringing along a for- mer nuclear launch officer to bolster her point. "Imagine his advisers afraid to tell him what he doesn't want to hear, racing against his legend- arily short attention span to lay out life-and-death choices too complex to be reduced to a single tweet," Clinton said Monday in Ohio. "Then imagine him plunging us into a war be- cause somebody got under his very thin skin." After spending much of the summer and fall tear- ing Trump down, Clin- ton had planned to close the campaign on a more positive note. She talked about giving Americans something to vote for, not just against. And with public opinion polls show- ing her with solid leads in most battleground states, she started talking about healing divisions and uni- fying the country after the election. But her advisers say they saw polls tighten even before the FBI launched its new email review. The campaign now believes she needs to make a last push to de- fine Trump as an unac- ceptable choice in order to seal the deal with per- suadable voters. On Tuesday, Clinton focused on Trump's de- meaning and predatory comments about women, calling him a "bully." This time she brought with her former Miss Universe Ali- cia Machado. Trump crit- icized Machado for gain- ing weight after winning the 1996 contest. Trump's campaign rhetoric has always been dark, full of searing de- pictions of a crumbling nation, and he has not been shy about going neg- ative on Clinton. He rou- tinely calls her "Crooked Hillary" and "the most corrupt person ever to run for the White House." But Trump, too, has stepped up his broadsides after the last weeks of Oc- tober handed him a pair of potentially potent po- litical gifts: the projected "Obamacare" premium rate hike and FBI Direc- tor James Comey's let- ter revealing that agents are reviewing emails that may be connected to Clin- ton's private server. His campaign sees the latter in particular as an opportunity to reinforce questions about Clinton's trustworthiness and re- mind voters that send- ing Clinton to the White House could lead to the return of the scandals that trailed Bill Clinton's presidency in the 1990s. "She would be under protracted criminal in- vestigation and probably a criminal trial, I would say," Trump said during a rally in Michigan on Mon- day. "So we'd have a crim- inal trial of a sitting pres- ident." Campaigning Tuesday in Pennsylvania, a state in which Trump has directed an abundance of time and resources, he and his run- ning mate Mike Pence de- livered their most full- throated takedown yet of President Barack Obama's health care law. Though barely men- tioning Clinton's name, the typically fiery Repub- lican somberly warned that electing Clinton would "destroy American health care forever." Clinton's and Trump's closing campaign adver- tisements reiterate the race's sharply negative tone. Her campaign has sev- eral commercials out that directly question whether Trump would launch a nu- clear attack. The ads fea- ture clips of him saying he likes to be unpredictable and would "bomb the (ex- pletive) out of them." She's also doubled down on her argument that Trump's offensive comments about women, as well as his boasts about touching women without their permission, disqual- ify him from the White House. A 60-second ad that features Trump in his own words over the years concludes: "Anyone who believes, anyone who says, anyone who does what he does, is unfit to be president." Meanwhile, Trump's ads reinforce his message that the country risks doom if it doesn't change directions by electing him. "Hillary Clinton will keep us on the road to stagnation," a narra- tor says in one of his lat- est ads. CLOSING ARGUMENTS Clinton, Trump warn of dire consequences if rival wins election SHESNORESMORE THANIDO,BUTISTILL LOVEMYHUMAN. —BANDIT adopted11-26-09 FBI DIRECTOR J.SCOTTAPPLEWHITE—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Oversight Committee to explain his agency's recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. By Nancy Benac and Eric Tucker The Associated Press WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey once called it a crucial leadership test: An- ticipatingwhetheradecision makes sense "through the eyes of others." Now his own big decision has Democrats and even some Republicans wonder- ing whether he failed his own test. The FBI director who prides himself on moral rec- titude and a squeaky-clean reputationisbeingcriticized from all sides for lobbing a stink bomb into the center of the presidential race. His disclosure that investigators have found more emails that may — or may not — relate to Democrat Hillary Clin- ton's use of a private email setup as secretary of state has jolted the race and gen- erated far more questions than answers. This isn't the first time Comey has found himself in the spotlight for taking a stand on what the 6-foot-8 lawyersawasthemoralhigh ground.Perhapsthelastpre- viousthingmanyAmericans heard about Comey was the tale of his dramatic rush to the bedside of then-At- torney General John Ash- croft in a darkened hospital room in 2004 for a standoff with senior White House of- ficials over federal wiretap- pingrules.Comey,servingas acting attorney general dur- ingAshcroft'sillness,dashed to the bedside to block Bush administrationofficialsfrom making an end run to get Ashcroft's permission to re- authorize a secret no-war- rant wiretapping program. "That night was probably the most difficult night of my professional life," Comey testified before Congress in 2007. Perhaps until now. Former Justice Depart- ment officials and lawmak- ers from both parties are calling Comey's revelation aboutClinton'semailsjust11 days before the election an improper, astonishing and perplexing intrusion into politics in the critical end- game of the 2016 campaign. It's an unexpected pre- dicament for the man who has painted ethical decision- making as an easy call. "There's right, and there's wrong, and it ain't hard to tell the difference," he once said. That internal certitude has led the FBI official to freelance his positions at times. Last year he broke from the White House in sug- gesting a possible link be- tween police officers' anx- ieties about taking actions that could be recorded on vi- ral videos and rising homi- cide rates in some American cities. The White House dis- tanced itself from those re- marks, saying there was no scientificevidencetosupport a connection, or show that officers were pulling back from their responsibilities. Comey, a former Republi- can who is no longer regis- tered with a political party, spent 15 years as a federal prosecutor before serving in the George W. Bush admin- istration. His office brought the case that led to Martha Stewart's conviction on ob- struction of justice and ly- ing to government investi- gators. As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, he han- dled the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 membersoftheU.S.military. President Barack Obama, when he nominated Comey for a 10-year-appointment to the FBI job in 2013, cited his willingness to stand up to power "at key moments when it's mattered most," referencing the hospital- room standoff. Aides say Obama's high opinion of Comey still stands. But the White House is leaving the FBI director dangling, saying it is up to him to defend himself in the face of what spokesman Josh Earnest called "signif- icant criticism from a vari- ety of legal experts, includ- ing individuals who served in senior Department of Jus- tice positions in administra- tions that were led by presi- dents in both parties." Indeed, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a hard-line conser- vative and House Judiciary Committeemember,toldFox News Radio that "this was probably not the right thing for Comey to do, the proto- col here, to come out this close to an election. But this wholecasehasbeenmishan- dled,andnowitiswhatitis." And former Rep. Joe Walsh,asupporterofDonald Trump, tweeted that Com- ey's action amounted to an "unconstitutional abuse of government power against our electoral process. Just not right." Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada went a step further and accused Comeyofdeliberatelyinsert- ing himself into the race to damage Clinton's presiden- tial prospects, suggesting the FBI director may have broken the law. Comey, 56, made his dis- closure about the Clinton emails despite admonitions from officials within the Justice Department not to go there. It is longstanding Justice Department proto- col to avoid taking investi- gative action in the run-up to an election that could af- fect its outcome. Comey told colleagues that he felt obligated to go public with the information after having previously told Congress over the summer that the investigation into Clinton's emails had been concluded without prose- cution. Trying to explain his decision, he wrote to FBI employees that it would have been "misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record" despite the "signifi- cant risk of being misunder- stood." Christine Chung, a New York lawyer who worked with Comey when he was the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, described him as ever "determined to do the right thing." The criticism he's faced over the email disclosure, she added, is a "lesson for why good people shouldn't go to Washington." Co me y: D o- th e- ri gh t- th in g gu y in e ma il m ae ls tr om By Andrew Taylor The Associated Press WASHINGTON As early as last December, the Clin- ton campaign was plotting ways to sideline the head of the Democratic Party amid complaints about internal fights in the party's leader- ship, according to the latest WikiLeaks release of hacked emails. Among the options for Florida Rep. Debbie Was- serman Schultz was neu- tralizing her and then forc- ing her out after the Dem- ocratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July. Other options forwarded by top campaign aide Heather Stone would have kept Was- serman Schultz in place but in a weakened capacity as a figurehead or a co-chair- woman who would cede power to a "general election chair" named by Clinton. The memo urged "sys- temic shifts at the DNC lead- ership level" to help Clinton win a general election. The memo was part of the latest trove of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and released Tuesday. "Though we have reached aworkingarrangementwith them, our dealings with party leadership have been marked by challenges, often requiring multiple meet- ings and phone calls to re- solve relatively simple mat- ters," Stone's memo said. "We are frequently caught in the middle of poor com- munication and a difficult relationship between the chairwoman and the exec- utive director." 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