The FBI’s decision ends the
legal uncertainty that has dogged the Clinton campaign. However, Comey was
highly critical of Mrs Clinton and her staff.
There was no clear evidence
that Mrs Clinton intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified
information, Comey said.
The Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) yesterday revealed that no criminal charges would be filed
against Hillary Clinton over the use of private email servers while she was
secretary of state.
The Democratic USA
presidential candidate was, however, sharply rebuked by the FBI for “extremely
careless” handling of classified information.
This happened as United
Kingdom (UK) Home Secretary, Mrs Theresa May, comfortably won the first round
of the contest to become the next Conservative leader and UK prime minister as
David Cameron leaves office in October.
FBI Director, James Comey,
said “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue a case.
But he added, “there is
evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive,
highly classified information.”
The FBI’s key findings
revealed that it is possible that “hostile actors” gained access to Mrs
Clinton’s email account, that there were more than 100 emails that contained
classified information when they were sent or received, contrary to her claims,
that Mrs Clinton employed multiple email servers and devices that she did not
delete emails in an effort to conceal them.
Comey said the FBI did not
find that Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate the law, and that there
was no “intentional misconduct” by her lawyers who sorted her emails.
He said her staff ought to
have known Clinton’s private email was an improper place for classified
information, but there was no evidence that anyone had hacked Clinton’s
communications.
The FBI found 110 emails in
52 email chains that contained information that was classified at the time the
messages were sent, Comey said. Eight of those chains contained “top secret”
information, the highest level of government classification for material that
could harm national security.
Another 36 email chains
contained “secret” information, and eight “confidential” information, he said.
Agents also found three classified emails among the thousands Clinton never
returned to the State Department.
Comey said there were no
previous cases that supported filing criminal charges against Clinton. Other
cases had involved intentional mishandling of information, he said, and there
was no evidence Clinton knew she was violating the law.
Last year, the FBI
recommended that former CIA director, David Petraeus, be charged with a felony
for his mishandling of classified information with his biographer, with whom he
was having an affair.
In that case, however, the
FBI had evidence that Petraeus knew the information was highly classified.
Petraeus eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge of mishandling
classified information.
Republican presidential
hopeful Donald Trump has hammered Clinton on the issue, saying the
investigation should disqualify her from being president, and he is unlikely to
let up.
The likely Democratic
presidential nominee’s use of private email has been a talking point in the
election, with critics saying Mrs Clinton believes she is above the law.
Trump called the decision
“very unfair” and said Mrs Clinton’s use of private email compromised national
security.
On Tuesday, he said the
FBI’s decision was unfair. “The system is rigged,” he said on Twitter. “As
usual, bad judgment.”
Comey’s announcement came
hours before Clinton’s first campaign appearance with President Barack Obama,
in North Carolina. It also came less than three weeks before the Democratic
National Convention at which Clinton is to be nominated as the party’s candidate
for the Nov. 8 election.
Mrs Clinton said she set up
the email address for reasons of convenience, because it was easier to do
everything from one device than to have several phones or tablets.
She had previously said she
did not knowingly send any classified material from her account.
But investigators found
that a number of messages that were marked classified at the time were sent
from her account.
The FBI ended its
investigation after agents interviewed Mrs Clinton for more than three hours
over the weekend about her email habits.
The Department of Justice
will ultimately decide whether to press charges, but Attorney General Loretta
Lynch has said she would follow the FBI’s recommendation.
The Clinton campaign said
on Tuesday that they were “glad that this matter is now resolved”.
Mrs Clinton’s campaign says
it showed that her practices were consistent with those of other secretaries of
state who “also used personal email” and she was “not unique” in doing it.
However, she has apologised
for using the private email system, calling it “a mistake.”
“As I look back at it now,
even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts… I’m sorry about
that. I take responsibility,” she said.
The FBI has been
investigating whether Clinton broke the law as result of personal email servers
kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from
2009 to 2013. One of the questions is whether she mishandled classified
information on the servers.
In the UK vote yesterday,
Mrs May got 165 of the 329 votes cast by Tory MPs. Andrea Leadsom came second
with 66 votes. Michael Gove got 48.
Liam Fox, who came last
with 16 votes, has been eliminated. Stephen Crabb, who got 34 votes, has
decided to drop out.
Further voting will narrow
the field to two. The eventual outcome, decided by party members, is due on 9
September.
Mrs May – who went in to
the contest as the frontrunner – and Mr Crabb, the work and pensions secretary,
both campaigned for the UK to stay in the EU.
Mrs Leadsom, an energy
minister, Mr Gove, the justice secretary, and Mr Fox, a former defence
secretary, campaigned for Brexit.
The leadership contest has
been sparked by David Cameron’s decision to step down as prime minster after
the UK voted by 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave the EU, in the 23 June
referendum.
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