I read through the article, here's the section you mentioned:
The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, was first with the salacious story: Anthony D. Weiner, the former New York congressman, had exchanged sexually charged messages with a 15-year-old girl.
The article, appearing in late September, raised the possibility that Mr. Weiner had violated child pornography laws. Within days, prosecutors in Manhattan sought a search warrant for Mr. Weiner’s computer.
Even with his notoriety, this would have had little impact on national politics but for one coincidence. Mr. Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, was one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest confidantes, and had used an email account on her server.
F.B.I. agents in New York seized Mr. Weiner’s laptop in early October. The investigation was just one of many in the New York office and was not treated with great urgency, officials said. Further slowing the investigation, the F.B.I. software used to catalog the computer files kept crashing.
I had read one discussion that reasoned whether or not Weiner turned over the laptop, as opposed to what comes to mind when reading the term "seized". (sorry don't have it handy)
Couldn't have NYPD investigators or SVU have been given access if there was no urgency, and the FBI was hindered by their computer problems? This case had been 'an unrelated case' to what came later. At some point the HRC linked emails were discovered. Did NYPD Special Victims unit looking through picture files or video files on the computer?
Eventually, investigators realized that they had hundreds of thousands of emails, many of which belonged to Ms. Abedin and had been backed up to her husband’s computer.
Neither Mr. Comey nor Ms. Lynch was concerned. Agents had discovered devices before in the Clinton investigation (old cellphones, for example) that turned up no new evidence.
Then, agents in New York who were searching image files on Mr. Weiner’s computer discovered a State Department document containing the initials H.R.C. — Hillary Rodham Clinton. They found messages linked to Mrs. Clinton’s home server.
And they made another surprising discovery: evidence that some of the emails had moved through Mrs. Clinton’s old BlackBerry server, the one she used before moving to her home server. If Mrs. Clinton had intended to conceal something, agents had always believed, the evidence might be in those emails. But reading them would require another search warrant, essentially reopening the Clinton investigation.
The election was two weeks away.
Comey learned of the Clinton emails on the evening of Oct. 26 and gathered his team the next morning to discuss the development.
You raised this idea surrounding the FBI agents and NYPD 'big news' story
FBI agents were actually the ones pushing this fake story and didn't want their actions to be looked at so they pushed it off to the NYPD, even though the NYPD never had the laptop.
Here is one blog wondering about FBI malfeasance:
Just another article on the case. Sept 22, 2016 https://archive.li/58ama (3 different groups investigating)
Prosecutors in US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office have issued a subpoena for Anthony Weiner’s cell phone and other records, law enforcement sources said.
NYPD detectives and the Manhattan DA’s office are also “looking into” allegations that Anthony Weiner engaged in a months-long sexting relationship with an underage girl, sources told The Post Thursday.
The NYPD’s Special Victims Unit is investigating the matter after a 15-year-old high-school student released a trove of sick texts and photos she allegedly received from the disgraced politician.
“We’re looking to see if a crime was committed in New York and if there’s a complainant,” an NYPD official said.
You stated: Doug Hagmann went on Alex Jones with this "fake NYPD has evidence that will turn your stomach story"
This thought came to mind... the NXIVM related 'fright studies', THOSE videos. Any one in a million chance that members or supporters of NXIVM are floating around the background in this NYPD/FBI/Weiner laptop 'video 'story? Just a thought. (in what motive or capacity I've not thought that far)
https://nypost.com/2018/05/05/nxivm-doctor-charged-with-conducting-human-experiments/
[–] Are_we_sure ago (edited ago)
Seized in this case would mean a Search and Seizure warrant was in effect.
This is in the realm of hypothetical. There's no indication the NYPD was involved with the laptop. Your hypothetical is, of course, possible, but it leads to FBI and NYPD cooperating which is the complete opposite of what all these stories said.
Agents most assuredly refers to FBI agents here.
While looking at this I found, out that the fake Life Insurance story even evolved and grew. People were claiming these three improbably named folders were found on Wiener's lapto
Gee, thanks for naming them so descriptively Anthony.
By the way, a huge tipoff to fake news is if it excites you by confirming previously held beliefs. Fake news site know what get clicks and they write their stories accordingly. They know which stories you are more likely to share.