FBI: Hillary will not face charges over secret emails
THE FBI’s director last night branded Hillary Clinton ‘extremely careless’ over her use of a private email server – but said she would not be prosecuted.
James Comey said the presidential candidate sent or received 110 emails that were classified at the time.
The messages could have been hacked as she used the email account numerous times in hostile countries, he added.
Mr Comey dismantled the Democrat’s defence of her conduct and gave ammunition to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
While the FBI director’s decision not to recommend prosecution lifts a huge weight from Mrs Clinton, who was for three-and-a-half hours by the bureau on Saturday, it will fuel fears she is not trustworthy. Mr Trump wrote on Twitter: ‘FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.’
In a statement Mrs Clinton said she was ‘glad this matter is resolved’ and that it was a ‘mistake’ for her to use a private email server.
House speaker Paul Ryan, the most powerful Republican in Congress, said the FBI decision sets a ‘terrible precedent’, adding: ‘While I respect the professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law.’
Mrs Clinton installed the private email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York, when she became Secretary of State in 2009 – instead of using her official account. The FBI investigation examined whether she breached rules regarding handling of classified information.
Mr Comey said: ‘Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing handling of classified information, there is evidence they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.
‘Any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position… should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that information.’
Mr Comey said, contrary to previous reports, Mrs Clinton had more than one server. FBI agents read through all 30,000 emails Mrs Clinton turned over to the Department of State.
They found 110 contained classified information at the time they were sent or received – of which eight email chains were ‘top secret’ and 36 ‘secret’.
Another six classified emails were found in Mrs Clinton’s decommissioned servers and other people’s email accounts.
A further 2,000 emails were later designated classified.
Mr Comey revealed that Mrs Clin-interviewed ton used her private email account ‘extensively’ in the ‘territory of sophisticated adversaries’ and concluded it was ‘possible that hostile actors gained access to her email system’, though he could not be sure.
Addressing Mrs Clinton’s claim that she did not send or receive anything that was officially classified at the time, he said: ‘Even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.’
Last week her husband Bill Clinton caused a row when he had an informal meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was technically in charge of the investigation into his wife. But Mr Comey said the FBI investigation was ‘apolitical’ and pointed out that the Department of Justice did not know what he was about to say.
He said that the investigation was carried out with ‘honestly, competently and independently and no outside influence of any kind brought to bear’.
A separate investigation by the State Department in May found Mrs Clinton broke the rules by using her private email server instead of her official work account.
Polls show Mrs Clinton has a serious trust problem with voters – 64 per cent think she is untrustworthy, the same as Mr Trump.
‘No one should be above the law’ ‘Extremely careless’