One of the dark clouds hanging over Hillary Clinton‘s bid for the presidency of the United States is the matter of her private email server.
For the uninitiated, here’s the lowdown: while Clinton was Secretary of State, she maintained and used a private email server for official business – a massive, massive no-no which she absolutely would have known. Many of these emails contained classified info, which raised alarms given that her server would not have been subject to the intense security of official government comms.
Well, after a comprehensive year-long investigation, FBI director James Comey has announced that no criminal charges will be pressed against Clinton, though he did criticise the “extremely careless” way in which the emails were handled.
FBI Director James Comey speaks about the investigation into Clinton’s private email server https://t.co/mJt5gbXS6b https://t.co/YduNvvPtzD
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 5, 2016
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” said Comey.
He said that similar cases which had come to prosecution tended to involve the transmission of vast quantities of classified data, wilful breaches of the rules and efforts to obstruct justice. He claimed that it would be difficult to prove this was the case with Clinton’s server.
It’ll still hurt Clinton politically, though, and give opponent Donald Trump some ammunition. 110 emails were identified to contain classified info, with 8 email chains containing ‘top secret’ info. Trump is really going in on this.
FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016
Though the Justice Department will be likely to accept the FBI’s report and not press charges, you can expect this to be a live issue all the way up to the election. Hillary has admitted she made a huge error, so looks like Democrats are going to have to wear this one.
I’ll be honest, Careless But Not Criminal isn’t a great campaign slogan.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Getty Images.
