FBI director recommends no charges against Hillary Clinton in email probe

Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton acknowledges supporters during a campaign rally, where she received the endorsement of US President Barack Obama (R), in Charlotte, North Carolina, US, July 5, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - US FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state but called Clinton and her team "extremely careless" in handling sensitive information.

The announcement, which came only about 72 hours after FBI agents interviewed Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2016 presidential election, dispelled a huge legal cloud over her campaign.

Comey said federal investigators found that 110 emails in 52 email chains had contained classified information at the time they were sent or received and that eight of those 52 chains "contained information that was top secret" when they were sent.

Apart from the approximately 30,000 work-related emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, investigators later discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails, Comey told a press conference.

"With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to the State Department, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level," he said.

However, Comey said there was no clear evidence that Clinton and her aides intended to violate the law.

"Although there is evidence of potential violation of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," said Comey.

The Clinton campaign immediately welcomed the announcement, saying it was pleased with the FBI decision. But it also admitted that Clinton had made a mistake by relying solely on a private email setup to deal with work-related emails.

"As the Secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again," said the campaign in a statement.

As for the several thousand additional work-related emails not handed over to the State Department by Clinton in 2014, Comey said the FBI found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them in some way.

"Our assessment is that like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from her system when devices were changed," said Comey.