Donald Trump tore into Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, hours after FBI Director James Comey said the agency would not recommend criminal charges against the former secretary of state despite her “extremely careless” handling of classified information.
In a lengthy statement, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee pointed to several new details about Clinton’s private email server that raise questions about her judgement and whether she and her aides will retain access to classified intelligence in the wake of the FBI’s findings.
“The FBI director laid out today a detailed case of how Hillary Clinton compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security,” said the Trump campaign.
While agency officials were unable to find concrete evidence that Clinton’s unsecure email server was ever hacked, Comey conceded on Tuesday that individuals with hostile intent against the U.S. could have gained access to her emails.
“Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service,” the Trump campaign said in its statement.
The statement continued: “Because of our rigged system that holds the American people to one standard and people like Hillary Clinton to another, it does not look like she will be facing the criminal charges that she deserves.”
Trump also claimed that last week’s informal meeting between former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch was far from accidental and that Clinton’s interview with FBI officials over the Fourth of July weekend “wouldn’t be afforded to others under investigation.”
“It was no accident that charges were not recommended against Hillary the exact same day as President Obama campaigns with her for the first time,” the campaign said, adding that “the normal punishment, in this case, would include losing authority to handle classified information, and that too disqualifies Hillary Clinton from being president.”
“The final jury will be the American people, and they will issue the verdict on her corruption, incompetence and bad judgment on Nov. 8,” the statement concluded.
