Loretta Lynch speaks at a press conference in Washington, DC. (Getty)
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced late Wednesday that the Department of Justice will not charge Hillary Clinton after the FBI completed its investigation into Clinton’s email use while Secretary of State. Lynch previously said that she would stand by the FBI’s suggestions and that’s exactly what she did.
Here’s Lynch’s full statement, via the Huffington Post:
Late this afternoon, I met with FBI Director James Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted the investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use pf a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State. I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be bought against any individual within the scope of the investigation.
FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday that, while Clinton’s use of a private email server was “careless,” he would not recommend criminal charges for Clinton or members of her staff.
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. Some 2,000 other emails contained information that was later “up-classified” – that is, information that was not classified at the time the email was sent, but was later classified. Comey also said that the FBI did not find that Clinton or her staff intentionally deleted emails.
“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” Comey said.
The DOJ’s decision will still come under Republican scrutiny, especially after Lynch’s questionable meeting with former President Bill Clinton last week. After the meeting, Lynch said she would take the FBI’s recommendation in the Clinton case.
After the FBI’s decision came down on Tuesday, Clinton responded:
We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department of Justice is appropriate. As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that his matter is now resolved.
