WASHINGTON _ The FBI is recommending that no charges be brought against Hillary Clinton in connection with her email use while she was secretary of state, FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday.
"No reasonable prosecutor" would bring such a case, Comey said.
Although the FBI is not recommending charges, the FBI director did strongly criticize Clinton's handling of classified information in her email, calling it "extremely careless."
Comey's statement removes the most serious threat that had hung over Clinton's presidential campaign _ the possibility of a criminal indictment _ although his judgment of carelessness will surely resound from now until November.
Justice Department officials will review the FBI's recommendation, but the chances that they would overturn it are virtually nil. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced last week that she would defer to the judgment of the FBI and career prosecutors.
The investigation found "evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information," Comey said. But it did not find evidence of the sort of aggravating factors that were present in "all the cases prosecuted" in the past. Those included "willful mishandling" of classified information, "intentional misconduct," disloyalty or "efforts to obstruct justice," Comey said.
"We do not see those things here," he said.
Comey's statement did not foreclose the possibility of administrative action against Clinton or some of her former aides, which could include loss of security clearances. People who mishandle classified information are "often subject" to such sanctions, he said.
He was strongly critical of the State Department as a whole, saying that its "security culture" was "lacking in the kind of care for classified information that is found elsewhere" in the government.
The announcement comes three days after FBI agents and Justice Department officials interviewed Clinton at FBI headquarters _ a step that had long been forecast as the final move in the investigation.
Comey spoke for about 15 minutes, taking no questions afterward. The bureau's decision involved no political influence, and other government officials had no idea in advance what he was to say, Comey said.
For the FBI director to make a public announcement of the bureau's recommendations to prosecutors was a dramatic departure from the usual practice, something that Comey took note of at the start of his remarks. His was an "unusual statement," he said.
Typically, the FBI makes no public comment when it finishes an investigation. In the rare cases in which the government does say something publicly at the end of an investigation, the FBI's remarks come in coordination with prosecutors and after the Justice Department has reviewed the case. But "unusual transparency" was warranted in this case because of the "importance of the matter," Comey said.
The FBI has been investigating the case for nearly a year, seeking to determine whether Clinton or any of her aides had mishandled classified information in connection with her emails. The bureau acted on a request from the inspectors general of the State Department and the intelligence community, who determined that some of the emails Clinton handled included classified information.
Comey's statement directly challenged one of Clinton's defenses in the case _ her repeated assertion that none of the emails she handled was marked classified.
While that is true of the vast majority of the emails, he said, "even if information is not marked classified in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it."
The bureau's review, which involved "painstaking" reconstruction of thousands of emails, determined that 110 emails, involving 52 message chains, contained information that was classified at the time it was sent, Comey said. Eight of those were classified top secret.
Comey, a Republican, was appointed FBI director by President Barack Obama in 2013. He served as the Justice Department's second-ranking official, deputy attorney general, under President George W. Bush and was a federal prosecutor for much of his career before that, including two years as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
