Subject: Re: Audio of Trump's Conversation
Because James Comey was sticking to the strict wording of USC 1924 (IIRC) instead of the Espionage Act. They could have NAILED her on a million counts there but he didn't want to.

How could they have nailed her on that? Here's the operative language of that section:

a)Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.

In order to convict someone of a crime (any crime), you have to prove that all of the elements of the crime are present. If you can't prove one of the elements, then you can't get a conviction.

With Clinton, there's no way they could have proved one of the elements of this statute: to wit, the requirement that the person "knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority." This crime can't be committed just by having possession of or receiving classified information in an unauthorized location. You have to have also removed them from where they were supposed to be.

But these are emails. These are things that were sent to her, by other people. Any classified information that was appended to or included in the emails would have been removed from their proper location by the sender, not Clinton (as the recipient).

Not to mention her destruction of evidence.

She didn't destroy evidence within the meaning of any criminal statute. That's section 18 USC 1519, which provides:

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

There are two elements of that crime that can't be met if you want to prosecute Clinton: "knowingly" and "department or agency." The first, because Clinton claims - with corroborating witnesses - that she gave the order to delete the emails on her server before the Congressional subpoena was issued, and thus did not have knowledge that those materials (or any materials) were being sought for an investigation. The second, because Congress isn't a department or agency - so their investigations don't trigger this statute (or any duty to preserve documents).