Clinton email server probe: FBI will not recommend charges
WASHINGTON: The FBI said on Tuesday it was not recommending charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, an issue that has dogged her campaign for the White House.
Though “there is evidence that they (Clinton and her aides) were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information”, FBI director James Coomey said in prepared remarks, “we are expressing to justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case”.
The justice department will make the final decision but the FBI recommendation was widely taken to mark the beginning of the end of a controversy that has dogged Clinton’s campaign for months.
CNN commentator David Gergen said though the FBI decision will likely to create controversy, it “basically removes big hurdle from (Hillary Rodham Clinton’s) path”.
A spokesman for Clinton, who was to appear with President Barack Obama at their first joint campaign appearance later on Tuesday, said her campaign was pleased with the FBI findings, and that it was a “mistake” for her to use the personal email.
Her Republican rival Donald Trump tweeted: “FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.”
The FBI began investigating her use of a private email server on a referral from a intelligence community watchdog to ascer- tain if classified information was transmitted on that system.
As secretary of state, Clinton used a private email service hosted on a server at her home in New York state, which was neither maintained, supervised nor guarded by the government.
As part of the investigation, Clinton handed over 30,000 work-related emails from this server to the state department, which were investigated by the FBI and others.
Among them, 110 emails in 52 email chains contained 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. About 2,000 others were classified later.
Coomey said seven email chains concerned matters “that were classified at the Top Secret/ Special Access Program level when they were sent and received”. He added: “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”