Hillary Clinton will not be charged for sending emails from a private server.
The long national frustration over Hillary Clinton’s emails is over, at least officially, as the FBI announced they could find no crime committed by the Democratic presidential candidate, and that they would not recommend filing charges to the Justice Department. But that doesn’t mean we’re done hearing about the issue, as many Republicans are unlikely to let it drop in the midst of the 2016 Presidential election.
A real quick recap: while working as Secretary of State, Clinton sent a bunch of emails using a private account instead of an official account. Some of them contained classified information (as many as 110 out of 30,000) which could, hypothetically, have fallen into enemy hands. There’s no proof that has happened, and the FBI did not find that Clinton willingly distributed classified information, which is required to consider this a crime.
Democrats have largely labeled the investigation a witch hunt from the beginning, with Republicans purposely putting up roadblocks to hurt Clinton’s chances of being elected. The story originally broke in March of 2015 and has been an on-again-off-again hot-button issue. Many have labeled Clinton as a criminal or traitor actively trying to obstruct the investigation.
The email scandal has compounded with other controversy over the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attack on an American diplomatic compound, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans. Many hold Clinton personally responsible for these deaths, though the report released after a two-year investigation does not implicate her.
While the FBI director didn’t recommend charges against Clinton for the emails, he made it abundantly clear that she messed up–big time. He chose some pretty harsh words to describe the mistake, and her opponents have taken that to heart, arguing that she can’t be trusted with the duties of the presidency. The fact remains that Clinton is facing no criminal charges.
But that lack of evidence isn’t going to prevent Donald Trump or his supporters from using this as ammunition against Clinton, especially following the FBI announcement. Many have written off the lack of official culpability as a demonstration of a corrupt system, instead choosing to believe that Clinton is guilty despite a lack of hard evidence.
