FBI: Clinton email handling 'careless,' but not criminal

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI won't recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of state, agency Director James Comey said this morning, lifting a major legal threat to her presidential campaign. But Comey called her actions "extremely careless" and faulted the agency she led for a lackadaisical approach to handling classified material.

Comey's decision almost certainly brings the legal part of the issue to a close and removes the threat of criminal charges. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI director and of career prosecutors.

"No charges are appropriate in this case," Comey said in making his announcement.

But Comey made that statement after he delivered a blistering review of Clinton's actions, saying the FBI found that 110 emails were sent or received on Clinton's server containing classified information. He added it was possible that people hostile to the U.S. had gained access to her personal email account.

"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," he said.

Yet after criticizing Clinton, her aides and the department for their actions, he said that after looking at similar circumstances in past inquiries, the FBI believed that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

Comey made the announcement just three days after the FBI interviewed Clinton in a final step of its yearlong investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.

He said he shared the FBI's findings with no one else in the government before making his announcement, which came just hours before Clinton was to travel with President Barack Obama on Air Force One to campaign together for the first time this year.

The declaration from Comey is unlikely to wipe away many voters' concerns about Clinton's trustworthiness, especially since the FBI director so thoroughly criticized her actions before delivering his verdict.

"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position ... should have known that an unclassified system was no place" for sensitive conversations, Comey said.

Nor will the recommendation stop Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for criminal charges, from continuing to make the server a campaign issue or suggesting Clinton was helped by a Democratic administration. After Comey's announcement, Trump tweeted, "The system is rigged ... Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment."