No. of Recommendations: 9
She still was using a non-governmental email and was receiving classified information on it (which is an FOIA violation). Whoever sent it to her there is also is a felon.
She's still guilty of the rest of it. That's beyond question.
The "rest of it" isn't a crime, though. Which is the real reason she wasn't charged. FOIA violations aren't criminal. Many violations of procedures for handling classified information aren't criminal. The violations that are crimes require certain specific elements to be present, which elements weren't present here - for example, as we've discussed, to violate Section 1924 it is not enough to possess classified materials in an unauthorized location, but you have to have been the one who removed them from their initial location in the first place.
That's why Clinton wasn't charged with a crime. She didn't commit one. That's why Trump hasn't been charged with violating Section 1924. He didn't commit that crime.
If Trump is charged with a crime, it will almost certainly be based on a violation of the statutes that make it a crime not to give the classified material back, and because he tried to conceal his refusal to return the material from the government. Not simply because he had classified material in a place he wasn't supposed to.
That's why the situations are different, and why noting that Trump violated a criminal statute is not fitting a jail cell for Biden or Clinton.
