US Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said she has accepted the FBI’s recommendation that no charges be brought over Hillary Clinton’s email practices while secretary of state.
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For the investigation, Clinton’s lawyers turned over 55,000 pages of email to the State Department, but withheld many that she claimed to be personal, regarding matters such as yoga classes and her daughter’s wedding.
Of course, this was nothing new for Clinton or her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
The AG said that their conversation at the Phoenix airport focused on the Clintons’ grandchildren and that at no time did the e-mail issue arise.
Trump invoked a almost identical line Tuesday, after Comey announced his recommendation to bring no charges against Clinton.
In total, the investigation found that 113 emails in 55 email chains have been determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.
The decision by Lynch brings to an end the legal concern for Clinton – but doesn’t end the political threat of an email scandal that has dogged her campaign from its outset.
In theory it leaves Clinton to concentrate on her bid for the White House, however Republican rival Donald Trump has accused her of bribing Lynch refering to reports that if elected Clinton might ask Lynch to stay on as attorney general.
Some presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, and lawmakers could use any past criticism of an aide’s handling of government secrets as a reason to block their appointment to a Senate-confirmed job, said William J. Leonard, a former director of the federal government’s Information Security Oversight Office.
While Comey’s statement acknowledged Secretary Clinton’s “extreme carelessness” in handling classified information, he said that her negligence didn’t rise to the level of violating the law.
“She said she’s going to reappoint the attorney general and the attorney general is waiting to make a determination as to whether or not she’s guilty”.
“Because of this, I’m calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to look into the charges and determine the appropriateness of prosecution for these crimes”.
On Capitol Hill, Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 3 House of Representatives Republican, reacted to Lynch’s announcement by proclaiming: “Secretary Clinton broke the law and lied about it”.
Clinton will campaign near the Trump Taj Mahal casino, which still bears the Republican’s name but now belongs to his friend Carl Icahn.
A State Department spokesman declined to commit to that undertaking in a comment to The Wall Street Journal, but he did say that the agency is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to resolve the matter.
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“There is evidence to support a conclusion [that Clinton] should have know that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation”, Comey said. Lynch said the investigation was not discussed, but she acknowledged that the meeting had “cast a shadow” on the process and led to questions about the independence of the investigation.
