Stein – like many who have criticized Comey’s decision – cited Title 18 Section 793 of the federal penal code, stating that even if Clinton did not intend to harm the United States, her actions constituted “gross negligence”, which is a prosecutable offense under the law.
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Still, Comey said Clinton’s email practices were “extremely careless”, blasting her for the use of both numerous servers and numerous mobile devices during her tenure at the State Department.
The investigation did find that “110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains” out of the 30,000 emails read by FBI investigators contained some classified information.
In a separate statement, Senator Tim Scott the FBI’s findings made it “painfully obvious” that Clinton put United States national security and classified information at risk, and even that her email was probably hacked by foreign operatives. But Mr. Comey said he couldn’t see any other cases in which a successful prosecution was made, so he was recommending against bringing charges.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr Trump accused Mrs Clinton of bribing Ms Lynch to decide not to press charges.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon took to Twitter to applaud Lynch’s decision.
Even so, it officially closes out an FBI investigation that had dogged Clinton for the a year ago and proved a major distraction on the campaign trail as she emerged as the Democratic presidential front-runner.
On Tuesday, Comey said that in the FBI’s view, “no charges are appropriate in this case”. Ryan, who was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should deny Clinton access to classified information during the campaign, although presidential candidates normally get such access once they are formally nominated. A May Rasmussen poll showed that 65 percent of voters believed Clinton broke the law by using her private server for classified information, but a poll conducted in January found that only 25 percent believed she would ever be charged with a felony.
The committee’s chairman, Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to Comey Tuesday asking for details into the FBI’s year-long probe, including the number of agents assigned, costs, and reasoning as to why no charges were recommended.
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Ryan noted that two House committees are looking into the Clinton email matter – the Judiciary committee and the Oversight Committee, where Comey had been invited to testify on Thursday (Friday NZT).
