Excerpts from an FBI report: A political indictment rather than a criminal one

A woman watches as FBI Director James Comey announces the results of his department's investigation into former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's handling of classified emails on Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C.. Clinton was expected to appear with at President Barack Obama in Charlotte later in the day. AP/John Bazemore

Credit: Jim Galloway

Credit: Jim Galloway

A woman watches as FBI Director James Comey announces the results of his department's investigation into former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's handling of classified emails on Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C.. Clinton was expected to appear with at President Barack Obama in Charlotte later in the day. AP/John Bazemore

So FBI Director James B. Comey has announced that no criminal charges will be forthcoming in regard to the email system that Hillary Clinton operated on several separate servers.

The decision eliminates any possibility that Republican presumptive Donald Trump will face a shaken Democratic ticket in November. And it encourage Bernie Sanders supporters make their peace with Clinton.

That said, Clinton didn't get off scot-free. Click here for Comey's full statement, which contains much of the language you're certain to see Republicans use against the Democratic presidential nominee when things get serious this fall. A few of the more disturbing excerpts:

There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation….

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail….

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial e-mail accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account.

We also assess that Secretary Clinton's use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal e-mail account.

That’s not a criminal indictment. Just a political one.