The conservative Wall Street Journal hypothesized Tuesday night that the FBI director’s recommendation not to indict Hillary Clinton was inspired by a fear of Donald Trump.
James Comey, head of the FBI, said earlier in the day that as secretary of state, Clinton and her team were “extremely careless” to have managed their official government business communications on a private email server that was found to be lacking in security and that “hostile actors” had possibly compromised.
He said, however, that he did not see a criminal case to be made against the presumptive Democratic nominee.
The Journal’s editorial board accused Comey of making a political calculation and holding a double standard for Clinton and the general public.
“We almost wish Mr. Comey had avoided his self-justifying, have-it-both-ways statement and said bluntly that he couldn’t indict Mrs. Clinton because the country must be spared a Donald Trump presidency,” the paper said. “It would have been more honest and less corrosive to democracy than his Clinton standard.”
It is up to U.S Attorney General Loretta Lynch as to whether Clinton will be prosecuted but she has already said that she planned to accept the FBI’s recommendation.
In his lengthy rebuke of Clinton’s handling of government information, Comey said that were she not a prominent figure, she likely would have faced punishment.
“This is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences,” he said. “To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.”
