I’ve remained silent imminently following the FBI’s decision not to indict Hillary Clinton. I've remained silent for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I didn’t have all of the facts at the time, and I was waiting for more information to be presented. My gut reaction to the news, however, was to say, “Okay, I was wrong. She did nothing wrong and the email issue should be dropped.” A Democrat friend of mine brought up why people are so insistent on talking about Hillary’s email issue and not about the issue of Donald Trump’s rape allegations. The question seemed pretty idiotic to me, mostly because Donald Trump was never convicted of the rape allegations and is innocent. In America, we have a saying -- innocent until proven guilty. Donald Trump was never proven guilty of said rape allegations because there was no proof. I was and am willing to say the same about Hillary Clinton, if it turns out that the FBI found nothing. If the FBI found nothing to support that Hillary had broken the law, then the email scandal/non-scandal should be dropped. That isn’t to say that we should not continue to criticize her. Nothing is above criticism, and that includes Ms. Clinton (disregarding the fact that most of the Democratic establishment believe that she can walk on water). But if she did nothing wrong she should not be criticized on that particular issue.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let's dive into this issue headfirst, shall we? Did Hillary Clinton do anything wrong? That would depend on whom you ask. If you ask the FBI, the answer is yes, despite their call to not indict her. Let’s break it down. According to FBI director James B Comey, Hillary Clinton had 110 emails in 150 email chains that contained classified information, 36 of those emails contained secret information, and eight contained top secret information. Not only did she use a personal email address, but also she had personal email servers built into her home. These servers had no full time security and, according to the FBI, that is worse security than just using a common email address such as Gmail. It is also very likely that hostile hackers gained access to said emails. This isn’t from my bias against Hillary; this is straight from the mouth of the FBI director.

So, where are the charges? She clearly broke the law, where are the charges? The FBI director decided against an indictment on the grounds that there were no signs of intent or of disloyalty to the United States, and she didn’t seem willing to obstruct the justice system. With a bar set that high, I agree with the FBI director that no charges should be present here. Even Hillary's most stark criticizers don’t believe that she is a Russian spy who hates America.

She had no treasonous intents. I’ll admit that. But was there intent? It could be argued that her recklessness was all the intent that she needed. She obviously knew what she was doing. She had multiple email servers built into her house for crying out loud. She knew, at least on some level, that what she was doing was wrong. But let's say that there was no intent and Hillary really didn’t know what she was doing (whether you want a president that stupid is your business). She still broke the law. If someone goes to a bar, gets hammered drunk, gets in their car and drives home, killing someone in the process, that person gets charged. Albeit not for murder, they get charged for manslaughter, but they still get charged, nonetheless. Now don’t jump on me and call it a false equivalence. The drunk driver didn’t mean to kill someone, but they still did it. Their recklessness in deciding to get behind the wheel of that car is just as reckless as Hillary’s decision to send knowingly classified information on a private email server.

If that doesn’t get you to see things my way, perhaps this will. This is not the first incident when something like this happened. Comey stated in his report that the FBI could not find a similar case in the past. But that’s not true. According to an FBI report made on July 29, 2015:

“'Bryan H. Nishimura, 50, of Folsom, pleaded guilty today of unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials,' United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced. U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman immediately sentenced Nishimura to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. The investigation did not reveal evidence that Nishimura intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel.”

Despite the fact that there was no intent shown by Nishimura, the FBI charged him criminally, and he received a criminal sentence. Also, he was stripped of his access of classified information. Both instances included the distribution of classified information in very similar ways, yet the results are very different. So what’s the difference between the two? Nishimura is not Hillary Clinton. So what have we learned today, kids? Hillary Clinton believes she is above the law…and she is right.

I have no doubt in my mind after looking at the facts that Hillary Clinton committed criminal wrong doings and a punishment should follow. But hey, we live in America. The rich and powerful have one standard and the average Joes have another. America: Home of the… sorta free? Fitting conclusion to July fourth weekend, and that’s my final judgement.