*Hillary haters are not going to be happy with the news that the FBI will not recommend criminal charges be brought against Hilary Clinton for her handling of classified information contained in emails. Today’s announcement takes a giant load off her shoulders just hours before appearing with President Obama at a campaign appearance.
But even though Clinton’s political opponents may not be happy with the FBI’s decision, it still doesn’t come without a cost her politically. Director Comey characterized Clinton as being “extremely careless” in using a personal email address and server for sensitive information, declaring that an ordinary government official could have faced administrative sanction for such conduct.
For criminal charges to have been warranted, Comey said, there had to be evidence that Clinton intentionally sent or received classified information — something that the F.B.I. did not find. “Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said at a news conference.
Here’s what the NY Times is reporting:
The Justice Department is highly likely to accept the F.B.I.’s instruction. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Friday that she would accept the recommendation of the F.B.I. and career prosecutors in the case, after questions were raised about an impromptu meeting between her and former President Bill Clinton at an airport in Phoenix.
Mr. Comey’s statement came three days after F.B.I. investigators interviewed Mrs. Clinton, a sign that the case was winding down. He described an elaborate yearlong investigation, in which the F.B.I. examined multiple servers, read 30,000 emails and interviewed dozens of people.
During the investigation, Mr. Comey said, the F.B.I. recovered additional work-related emails that Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers had not turned over to the State Department, including some that contained classified information. But he said there was no evidence that she or her lawyers had intentionally deleted or withheld them.
Still, Mr. Comey delivered what amounted to an extraordinary public tongue-lashing. “There is evidence to support a conclusion” that Mrs. Clinton “should have known an unclassified system was no place” for that information, he said.
Comey’s news conference brought to an end, an investigation that began a year ago when the inspector general for the intelligence agencies told the Justice Department that he had found classified information among a small sampling of emails Mrs. Clinton had sent and received.
Get MORE at NY Times.
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