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WASHINGTON – FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday that the bureau will not recommend the Department of Justice bring any criminal charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her email scandal.
“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey explained.
He said that was because there was “no clear evidence” Clinton or her colleagues intended to break the law, even though there was evidence they were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information.
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Comey did say there was evidence to conclude any reasonable person should have known an unclassified system was no place for such information.
“None of these emails should have been on any unclassified system,” he acknowledged, while claiming investigators did not find any criminal intent.
Comey said he had not coordinated his findings with the Justice Department in any way, and began his remarks Tuesday morning by declaring, “They do not know what I am about to say.”
The Justice Department could still decide to bring charges against the Democratic Party presidential nominee, but that is extremely unlikely, especially considering the recent remark by Attorney General Loretta Lynch that she would accept whatever the FBI recommended.
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Comey revealed Clinton actually used several different servers and multiple devices.
He said 110 emails in 52 email chains contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. That directly contradicted Clinton’s claim that nothing was marked classified when she sent or received it.
The FBI director did appear extremely concerned that Clinton had exposed state secrets to hackers, including those working for foreign governments.
Increasing his concern, Comey said, “We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.”
Comey also said the bureau discovered several thousand emails that Clinton had not turned over.
Additionally, the director revealed that before Clinton deleted the 30,000 emails she claimed were personal, her attorneys deleted emails that were actually official business. He said that was because they used search words rather than reading the emails to attempt to determine which to delete.
Comey maintained, “We found no evidence that any of the additional work related emails were intentionally deleted.”
He said the FBI’s investigation focused on whether any classified information was improperly stored or transmitted.
Intelligence agencies removed more than 2,000 classified documents before releasing Clinton’s emails to the public, even though she repeatedly insisted she never sent or received classified emails.
Clinton reportedly signed an agreement when taking office in 2009 that she was responsible for recognizing classified material, whether marked such or not, but said in June she didn’t remember signing it.
Contrary to Comey’s recommendation, there may be evidence that Clinton had the intention of violating security, addressed in a story WND published in February.
A 2011 email in which Hillary Clinton instructed an aide to remove the security headers on classified information and forward it to her unsecure smartphone set a precedent for the handling of similar information over the next year-and-a-half until she left office, a retired general well versed in the handling of classified information told WND.
“It certainly shows a trend or a way for them to do their own business [that] they felt would be under the radar,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, referring to five or six close Clinton assistants and advisers.
Vallely noted the Russians and Chinese have been hacking into U.S. computer systems for years, meaning Clinton effectively could have been aiding and abetting enemies.
In March 2015, it became publicly known that Hillary Clinton, during her tenure as secretary of state, used a private email server for official communications, rather than official State Department email accounts.
That included thousands of classified emails, including many that had been marked classified by the State Department retroactively.
The revelation instigated investigations by the FBI and the Justice Department.
