The FBI has ‘all but indicted’ Hillary Clinton’s judgement

On July 5, Hillary Clinton’s year-long tangle with the FBI finally came to an end. The good news for her: Director Comey recommended no criminal charges against the presidential candidate.

The bad news: everything else.

While James Comey found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in the investigation, the FBI Director slammed the former Secretary of State in ways that could be very damaging during the campaign.

“There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information,” Comey said in his statement.

When the FBI Director says you were careless with classified documents, there’s probably a good number of people who won’t want you as commander-in-chief.

But Comey didn’t end there. He went on, “We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

As the New York Times put it on the front page today, the “F.B.I.’s Critique of Hillary Clinton Is a Ready-Made Attack Ad.” The newspaper went on to say that the FBI had “all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday — two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy— and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year.”

Comey’s words will be repeated again and again up until November – count on it.

GOP leaders like Paul Ryan and Donald Trump predictably expressed outrage over Comey’s verdict.  Trump didn’t hesitate in taking jabs at Clinton; the Republican candidate took to Twitter: 

“This is an outrage and the rule of law has turned upside down,” Rand Paul posted on his Facebook page.

But Trump and his campaign were given more than enough to work with.  Comey didn’t just explain that Clinton was careless, he said hostiles may have obtained classified information. He also reported that 110 emails contained top secret or classified information, which is contradictory to Clinton’s repeated affirmations that no emails contained sensitive information.

“No one should be above the law,” Paul Ryan said following the FBI’s statement.

Leaders like Ryan are already claiming that Comey’s recommendation goes against his statements and explanations, and Trump would be a fool not to do the same.

Facebook and Twitter blew up with outrage and anger over the FBI’s conclusion, especially after it was confirmed Clinton mishandled highly classified emails.  These citizens who are angry fall into Trump’s base, which could grow if he milks this.

You can bet your life that Trump will be ranting about this until election night, and for good reason.  The American public is already wary about the federal government.  A recent study from Pew Research Center claims only 19 percent of Americans trust the federal government, and this will most likely cause that number to drop.

Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University, says the GOP can use Comey’s remarks against the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“Clinton’s candidacy would have been seriously jeopardized had the FBI’s decision gone the other way, however, the decision still leaves room for Republican attacks,” Zelizer said.