On July 5, 2016, FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI could not recommend charges against Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for using private email servers during her time as Secretary of State. The inability of the FBI investigators to prove Hillary Clinton’s intent is the primary reason she will not be charged. However, in Comey’s statement about the investigation results, there are several elements that degrade the FBI’s integrity in this case. Comey said, “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

One questionable element of the FBI’s decision is that Hillary Clinton’s lawyers were allowed to pick and choose which emails were turned over to the FBI. The lawyers are said to have conducted a search through the emails using technological tools to find all work-related emails. The emails that were deemed to be for personal use were permanently deleted beyond the scope of the FBI’s top technical experts’ ability to recover.

Another terrifying element of this email scandal is that it is highly likely and very possible that enemy hackers were able to extract classified information because the emails were contained on a private, unsecured server.

Hillary Clinton has also claimed several times that she “did not send or receive any information that was marked classified in her personal emails.” Contrarily, FBI Director James Comey said more than 2,000 emails contained classified information and some of them contained ‘bore markings indicating the presence of classified information.’” Hillary Clinton also claimed that her lawyers went through “every single email,” but Comey disclosed that the Clinton lawyers “used header information and search terms to try to find all work-related emails.“ Comey also stated that “[it is] highly likely that their search missed some work-related emails.” If it is highly likely that Clinton’s lawyers missed work-related emails, it is reasonable to believe that some incriminating work-related emails were deleted along with the personal emails.

The FBI claims that it could not prove intent based on the emails that were handed over, but it is also possible and highly likely that all emails that would prove intent were deleted by Clinton’s lawyers. This case is centered entirely on a single federal law, Title 18. Section 2071.

Title 18. Section 2071 reads:

(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not includethe office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

The “willfully” element is the reason that the FBI could not recommend charges, but how can an agency prove intent if the perpetrator destroyed all of the incriminating evidence?

If someone committed murder wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and then *accidentally* started a house fire that burned all of the clothes in his closet, including the white t-shirt and pair of jeans worn during the murder, because he knew that the police would want to search his apartment, he would be convicted of several crimes for destroying evidence and obstructing a police investigation, regardless of whether he intended to start the fire. Any ordinary person would be charged for destroying evidence that incriminated them, so what makes Hillary Clinton able to dodge charges for the same crimes? The answer: elitism. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, the only reason that Hillary Clinton did not receive charges for her crimes is because she is an elite, political figure who holds tremendous influence within the government and the political world.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey originally said, "I think the more dangerous part of this, from her standpoint, is not so much the placement of the material here as wiping the server." "Number one, that's a felony, but that statute disqualifies you from holding any further office in the United States and she's running for a further office under the United States." Later, Mukasey said that he was wrong because the only qualification that the U.S. Constitution requires for the office of the presidency is to be over the age of 35 and to have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. However, not applying criminal statutes such as Title 18. Section 2071 to presidential candidates would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which prohibits the application of law in favor of one group of people while simultaneously discriminating against another group of people. Having some laws that do not apply to certain groups, i.e. the political class, while also requiring laws to apply to ordinary people opens a whole new set of problems.

The consequences of this case will continue to unravel all that the criminal justice system stands upon. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, “No one should be above the law, but based upon the director's own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent.”