Hillary Clinton Dodges A Bullet With the FBI

In a bombshell press release, the FBI Director James Comey has recommended that no charges be filed against Democratic Presidential Candidate Hilary Clinton for her role in exchanging classified information on a private, unsecured email server.

This shocking revelation has sent both a mixture of disappointment, relief, and anger through the political sphere, especially within the Republican establishment as they were pushing hard for criminal charges against the presumptive Democratic nominee.

While Clinton was absolved of any intentional wrongdoing, Director James Comey spared no words in condemning Clinton for her negligence and poor behavior in handling classified information as Secretary of the State. He was quoted as saying that Hilary Clinton was “extremely careless” for using a private email address despite knowing that there was an inherent security risk in doing so.

Despite the details of the investigation contradicting much of Hilary Clinton’s defense of using the private email server, in order to warrant criminal charges Clinton would have had to intentionally and deliberately exchange the information. As a result of the FBI failing to find evidence pointing to such behavior, the FBI had no solid justification for pursuing criminal charges.

While the FBI cannot legally indict Hilary Clinton, the Justice Department, who would have charged Clinton, usually heeds the advice of the FBI in such high profile cases.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch has confirmed that the Justice Department would abide by the recommendation of the FBI so it is expected that Hilary Clinton will be abdicated of any wrongdoing and is to be expected to approach the general election with a large burden lifted off of her shoulder.

During the many months leading up to Director James Comey’s 15-minute statement regarding the future of Hilary Clinton, the details about the email scandal slowly trickled in.

It was said that over 30,000 emails were retrieved from the private email server and out of the 30,000 emails that were retrieved from Hilary Clinton’s private email database, over 110 of these emails were considered to be classified. While the number, proportionally, is low it still is extremely significant because of the nature of the documents.

Classified information typically contains information that is sensitive to national security matters.

Hilary Clinton, however, was staunch in her defense that she never exchanged any classified information. The details from the FBI investigation clearly contradicted such claims.

Clinton even used her mobile device, which was considered an even larger risk due to the vulnerabilities of such systems, while she visited foreign nations that were considered to be ‘hostile’ to the United States, potentially exposing even more US national security secrets to malevolent actors.

All of the details in regards to this case brought Hilary Clinton’s legitimacy and credibility into question, as many across the country began to wonder if an individual who used an unsecured email server to transmit classified information was even qualified to take on an even larger role as the President of the United States. Irrespective of party affiliation, it is important for people to view this case as objectively as possible and to ask the tough questions.

Would the ruling have been different if the person exchanging classified information were a mid-level diplomat or politician? Would the case have been handled differently if a general election weren’t a few months away? Would the situation have been different if the presiding administration were Republican instead of Democrat?

It is unequivocal to state that the many people following this drama, surrounding Hilary Clinton’s usage of a private email server, would consider the events preceding Director Comey’ statement as odd at best. Many people, including the entire Republican establishment, were confident that Hilary was going to be disqualified as a potential candidate for the general election because of the many breaches and lapses of security that took place under her direct approval. When the dust settled, though, all that was left was Hilary Clinton, unscathed and unfettered by the intense and controversial months of federal investigations.

Featured Image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore