WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” in handling classified information on her private email server, but he urged the Justice Department not to bring charges.
“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 announced at FBI headquarters in Washington.
“Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges. No charges are appropriate in this case. In looking back at our investigations into the mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” he added.
The blockbuster announcement came after Clinton finally sat down with FBI agents for a 3½-hour grilling on Saturday — and on the same day that she and President Obama are appearing together for the first time in the 2016 campaign, at a North Carolina rally.
Comey offered a detailed look into Clinton’s email system, starting the news conference by saying he had not discussed his findings with anyone else in government. “They don’t know what I’m about to say,” he said.
The FBI director said the agency reconfigured multiple email servers that Clinton used to reconstruct her emails.
Over a hundred “were determined to be classified at the time they were sent or received,” Comey revealed.
Several email chains that Clinton participated in contained “top secret” information at the time they were sent.
“None of these emails should have been on any unclassified system,” the FBI chief said.
Throughout the investigation, Clinton denied sending classified materials.
“I have said repeatedly that I did not send nor receive classified material, and I’m very confident that when this entire process plays out that will be understood by everyone,” Clinton said last year.
She repeated that claim Sunday on MSNBC.
But Comey directly contradicted her.
“From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were ‘up-classified’ to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent,” Comey said.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI director and of career prosecutors, meaning that Comey’s decision almost certainly brings the legal part of the issue to a close and removes the threat of criminal charges.
However, it’s unlikely to wipe away many voters’ concerns about Clinton’s trustworthiness. And it won’t stop Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for criminal charges, from continuing to make the server a campaign issue.
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer said Comey’s decision not to recommend an indictment was “ridiculous” considering what the FBI turned up.
“Secretary Clinton went into this position and set up this server clearly intending to avoid detection, clearly trying not to be transparent and clearly trying to set up a set of rules for her that were different than what everyone else has to follow,” said Spicer.
“Any other employee that works at the State Department that did what she did would have their security clearance pulled and would be facing charges. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan was equally perplexed by the outcome.
“While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation,” he said in a statement.
“No one should be above the law. But based upon the director’s own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment.”
Armed with Comey’s decision, Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon declared the issue over.
“We are glad that this matter is now resolved,” he said.
Trump said voters may see things differently and “issue the verdict on her corruption, incompetence and bad judgment on November 8th” — Election Day.
With Post wires