July 5, 2016

FBI Director James Comey Recommends No Charges in Hillary Clinton Email Probe

Clinton was interviewed by the FBI for more than three hours over the weekend.


FBI Director James Comey announced on Tuesday that the agency would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton in the criminal investigation looking into alleged misconduct over her use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state.

“Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said. “We cannot support bringing criminal charges based on these facts.”

Comey noted that there was “no intentional misconduct” in Clinton’s server use, but he said “there is evidence that [Clinton and her aides] were extremely careless in their handling of very classified information.”

The investigation’s conclusion comes after the FBI interviewed the presumptive Democratic nominee for more than three hours on Saturday. A separate probe by the State Department inspector general concluded in May that Clinton’s email practices violated long-established rules under the Federal Records Act.

The revelation that Clinton did not use secure email while she was secretary of state—and that she destroyed thousands of emails she and her aides deemed personal—was first reported by the New York Times in March 2015, a discovery that came during the Benghazi investigation. Her use of a private email server and the ongoing investigations have dogged her campaign for president and been a source of ammunition from Republicans and their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

Over the weekend, the real estate magnate lashed out at the FBI and accused the administration of colluding to allow Clinton to walk free:

After it was revealed that Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton last week—a conversation that some conservatives pointed to as evidence of an attempted cover-up—Lynch said she would accept the recommendations from the FBI and career Justice Department prosecutors regarding the question of criminal prosecution. Today Comey noted that the decision to prosecute is now up to career prosecutors within the Justice Department.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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