Briefly, FBI Director James Comey's statement that the bureau will not recommend to Justice Department officials that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be indicted for mishandling of classified material in association with the use of a private email server for official State Department business leaves me a little confused. Strictly with regard to the law, my understanding is that Clinton's actions fall within the terms of the US Code, Title 18, Chapter 1924, on the "Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents and materials." In this regard, the failure of the FBI to recommend prosecution in this case hinges on a particular interpretation of this provision, inferring that violations of the law require strict intent on the behalf of the transgressor. As such, Secretary Clinton will not be prosecuted under the law because she was oblivious either to the fact that she was handling classified materials in her email traffic or that handling such materials on an unauthorized server constituted a violation of the law. In other words, mere careless handling of classified materials does not constitute a criminal violation. The particular legal provision in question does, in fact, contain language supporting such an interpretation on the part of law enforcement officials and prosecutors, explicitly stating that classified materials must be "knowingly" removed "with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location." If this is the accepted interpretation of USC Title 18, Chapter 1924, then I can understand the sense of disgust that seemed to accompany Director Comey's announcement, implying that there apparently was much more that the Bureau wished that it could do to deter this sort of behavior in the handling of classified materials, but the law simply afforded no meaningful remedies. To the extent that this is true, it suggests that, especially in our current environment of informational warfare, hacking, and aggressive activity by violent non-state organizations aided significantly by online information gathering, Congress really needs to reexamine statutory standards on electronic storage and transmission of classified materials and add unambiguous criminal penalties for negligent handling of classified material, especially within electronic information transmission networks.
Apparently, the Office of the Inspector General for the State Department had explicit, written procedures in place to prevent employees of the department from doing precisely what Secretary Clinton had done, and, upon her appointment as department head, Secretary Clinton had cavalierly taken it upon herself to establish a nonconventional communications protocol without even asking the Inspector General's office whether use of private, non-governmental server was compliant with departmental procedures, much less with the United States Code(!). As a result, the department head and her staff set an example that sloppy, unprofessional skirting of security procedures in the handling of classified materials generated and circulating within the department was entirely understandable and permissible - precisely the sort of example that you would want to see from a head of state and chief diplomat of the United States. To the extent that conscientious compliance with the sound and reasonably enacted security procedures of a department responsible for maintenance of globally expansive communications networks incorporating thousands of diplomatic and foreign analytic personnel should be expected from the head of the department, at least as an example for subordinates, Director Comey quite reasonably voiced his frustration with the careless mishandling of classified materials by Secretary Clinton and her staff, and the American public deserved such a frank appraisal of Clinton's actions in order to better develop an informed judgment on Clinton's suitability for the office of President.
Having said this, we need to simultaneously keep in mind what is at stake in November for the American general electorate. Following the present course, the choice between prospective Democratic and Republican candidates, respectively, pits an arrogant, overly ambitious, out of touch, technocratic-minded career politician, who is apparently too concerned with appearances of professionalism to follow through on important details like information security, against an equivalently arrogant, self-centered billionaire real estate magnet and quasi-populist, who likes to play footsy with racist, xenophobic fascists and contemplates ripping up negotiated treaties and international agreements in order to remake the world in his own desired image. It should go without saying that, in a contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Clinton should be the only reasonable choice. As low an opinion as I have of Secretary Clinton, I do not want to even contemplate the alternative!
As for the conclusion that I am bound to hear, especially from the avowed Clinton-haters I work with, that someone had to have gotten to Comey and, further, to the Attorney General Lynch to convince them not to move forward on a prosecution of Secretary Clinton, the legal interpretation of Title 18, Chapter 1924 speaks for itself. Knowledge regarding the potential for violation of safe handling and intentionality to violate safe handling procedures is unambiguous as a threshold for criminal prosecution under current law. The prosecution of Hillary Clinton for criminal mishandling of classified material would have required a contortion of existing patterns of enforcement of federal law. On the other hand, many, many individuals will conclude, notwithstanding, that something stinks in the U.S. Justice Department. That is alright. Such individuals were never going to vote for Hillary Clinton in the November general presidential election anyway and were simply looking for some justification to vote for Donald Trump, even if he is utterly unqualified to serve as President of the United States. Any conspiracy theory concerning Secretary Clinton's use of her private email server expressly contradicts existing patterns of criminal law concerning the handling of classified materials by U.S. government employees. Insofar as this is the case, I still hope, sincerely, that Hillary Clinton will have learned from this episode, seeing through her own self-important, know-it-all arrogance to realize that she is embarking on a destiny that transcends, in its importance, the limited imagery that she envisions with the title of President and, as such, that she understand that the relevance of her achievement in November far transcends her own ambitions!
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