Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers while secretary of state disqualifies her from serving as president, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation Director, James Comey, found evidence that her email could easily have been hacked by foreign hostile actors.
“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,” Trump said in a statement hours after Comey announced that the FBI will recommend to the U.S. Justice Department that no charges be filed in Clinton’s email probe. “Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton, and this fact alone disqualifies her from service.”
Concluding a yearlong investigation, the FBI found evidence of “extremely careless” handling of emails by Clinton and that at least 110 emails contained classified information when they were sent, according to Comey. But, he said, the FBI concluded “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump rushed to delegitimize the nature of the decision by emphasizing his campaign theme of the rigged system in Washington, D.C. “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 said.
Comey’s announcement came hours before President Barack Obama joined Clinton for a campaign appearance in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“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 presumptive Republican presidential nominee asserted. “The system is rigged. 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 November 8th,” Trump predicted.
Reuters contributed to this report
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