Just in time for her Air Force One ride with President Obama, Hillary Clinton discovered that the FBI won’t push a criminal prosecution for her “extremely careless” handling of our nation’s secrets. FBI Director James Comey announced Tuesday morning that despite Clinton’s actions, he “cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges.”

Clinton had nothing to say during campaign events today about Comey’s decision, but her presumed GOP opponent Donald Trump quickly weighed in:

FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016

The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2016

Comey’s Blistering Critique

Trump is probably not the only one with a “Wow!” reaction to Director Comey’s statement this morning. For about ten minutes, Comey laid out a blistering critique of the former secretary of state. Remember Hillary’s claim that she never had any emails marked classified on her system?

“From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail changes have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received,” Comey said. “Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent.”

According to Comey, “any reasonable person” in Clinton’s position “should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.” He added, “None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system.”

Lost in the drama of today’s announcement, is that it only dealt with the private email server arrangement and the mishandling of classified material. The FBI has a separate corruption investigation underway looking into the alleged pay-to-play relationship between donations to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s actions while secretary of state.

Remember how Hillary said she had turned over all work-related emails? According to Comey, the FBI discovered “several thousand work-related emails that were not in the group of 30,000” returned by Clinton to the State Department. Three of those were classified at the time they were sent and received.

And when exactly did this scrubbing occur? Coincidentally, after the launch of the Benghazi investigation.

Note that the 30,000 emails “returned” to the State Department do not even include the 30,000 deleted by Hillary and her lawyers. Comey gives Hillary’s team a pass on whether there was “intentional misconduct” in connection with the “sorting effort.” However, said Comey, “It is also likely that there are other work-related emails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all emails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery.”

But as Ed Morrisey noted at HotAir, the relevant statute, 18 U.S.C. § 793(f), “expressly states that ‘gross negligence’ meets the standard for criminal prosecution, and Comey spent most of the presser making the case for gross negligence.

But as Ed Morrisey noted at HotAir, the relevant statute, 18 U.S.C. § 793(f), “expressly states that ‘gross negligence’ meets the standard for criminal prosecution, and Comey spent most of the presser making the case for gross negligence.”

Perhaps more to the point, Clinton, without permission or approval, carefully set up this private email system for a reason. Careless is inadvertently leaving a door open. Clinton carefully designed and built a house that optimized her chances of eluding freedom-of-information requests from American citizens even though that structure — the private server — greatly enhanced the chances of classified emails falling into the hands of our enemies, according to Director Comey. In sum, Hillary’s actions suggest she was more concerned about keeping secrets from America than from America’s enemies.

Hillary’s Not-So-Private Server

Did America’s enemies manage to eavesdrop on Hillary’s emails? Comey’s answer: Most likely, but they didn’t leave footprints. The FBI director said he could find no “direct evidence” that “hostile actors” hacked into Clinton’s system. However, he admitted that given the technical sophistication of our enemies, he wouldn’t expect to find such evidence.

Investigators found that hostile actors did hack the private accounts with whom Clinton was in regular email contact. Further, Comey also noted that she used her personal email extensively while traveling in the “territory of sophisticated adversaries.” His conclusion: “Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.”

The lack of “direct evidence” of a successful infiltration may have played a role in the FBI’s recommendation, since the negligence section of  18 U.S.C. § 793(f) states that anyone who, “through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” In other words, at least in regards to the “stolen” language, it needs to be shown that Hillary’s gross negligence led to her State Department emails being infiltrated by outsiders. Yet Comey insists the FBI was unable to obtain any such “direct evidence.”

Regardless, the lack of direct evidence of infiltration doesn’t touch the question of whether classified information was “removed from its proper place of custody” in the very act of setting up a poorly secured private email server.

FBI Director Coney also revealed facts that directly contradict Clinton’s repeated claims that 1), she handed over all her work-related emails, 2), that she never had information marked classified on her computer, and 3), that the FBI wasn’t engaged in a criminal investigation.

Despite Hillary openly tossing top secret information around like rice at a wedding, despite erasing emails that may well have belonged to the American people, despite likely giving some of our enemies enough blackmail material to keep the future Madam President in their pocket — and despite Comey seemingly spending a dozen minutes laying out an argument for prosecution, or at least a grand jury — Comey offered a twist worthy of a Brad Thor novel.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” he said, “our judgement is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Let alone a prosecutor — namely the Attorney General who would be the one to prosecute Hillary— who hangs out on planes with the spouse of the investigative target, and has been told she’ll likely get to keep her job if the target is elected instead of the GOP rival.

As was the case with Whitewater, Hillary Clinton once again appears to have eluded criminal indictment.

Or has she?

Hillary, Not Quite Home Free

No matter how “pleased” the Clinton campaign says it is to have this matter “resolved,” it’s too soon to pop the champagne corks. First, there’s the political cost. The head of the FBI has declared that the woman who wants to be commander-in-chief was “extremely careless” in handling classified information; operating in a manner that any “reasonable person” in her position should have known was foolish. Comey also revealed facts that 1), directly contradict Clinton’s repeated claims that she handed over all her work-related emails, 2), that she never had information marked classified on her computer, and 3), that the FBI wasn’t engaged in a criminal investigation. Each of these speak directly to her degree of honesty and competence. “I Am Not a Criminal” is hardly a campaign slogan.

The string of events over the past week, from Bill Clinton huddling with Loretta Lynch, to Hillary leaking that she’d want Lynch to stay, to the findings of the investigation, to the decision not to push for prosecution, will have Donald Trump feasting for months. “#CrookedHillary” and “#CorruptSystem” are just the start.

All sides of the Republican Party are up in arms. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said that while he respects the FBI, he is dumbfounded by the decision:

This announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law. But based upon the director’s own statement, it appears damage is being done to the rule of law. Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment.

Sen. Rand Paul was aghast.

Today Comey & Obama's DOJ made it clear to the American people there's no accountability no justice & the Clintons live by different rules.

— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 5, 2016

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sounded a more fiery call, saying in a Facebook post, “Letting Hillary skate today is no surprise when the team she’s on has celebrated its administrators pleading the fifth, over and over again, sending messages to America that they’re all above the law. From the IRS’s Lois Lerner to Hillary herself testifying in front of Congress, they’ve all told Congress to kiss off, and Congress kissed off. Today’s FBI forgiveness of tyrants’ illegal acts illustrate purpose in why I insist Americans rise up and tear down this tyrannical system that is destroying America from within.”

Comey himself spoke of consequences when saying he wouldn’t recommend criminal charges. “To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences,” Comey said. “To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.”

And that is not what Americans will be deciding Election Day.

Politics aside, the case of Hillary Clinton may see yet another, even more damaging twist.

The FBI’s Other Hillary Investigation

There is one phrase you will not see in FBI Director Comey’s statement: “The Clinton Foundation.” Lost in the drama of today’s announcement is that it only dealt with the private email server arrangement and the mishandling of classified material. The FBI has a separate corruption investigation underway looking into the alleged pay-to-play relationship between donations to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary’s actions while secretary of state. The New York Times bestseller, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, details many of the cozy arrangements that appear to have helped the Clintons parlay power into profits. In January, The Washington Examiner noted nine times Clinton Foundation donors got special access to Hillary’s State Department.

So did friends. Over the weekend, WikiLeaks released over 1,200 Hillary emails, including a chain which shows how Hillary helped push a contract in Afghanistan to her pal Joe Wilson.

So did family. Fox News reported Sunday that Hillary sought secret info on EU bailout plans for Greece, and shared that information with her husband — at the same time her son-in-law’s hedge fund was betting big on a Greek economic recovery. As Fox News noted, “Federal regulations prohibit the use of nonpublic information to further private interests or the interests of others.” Even the perception of a conflict of interest is “unacceptable.” Much less influential people have ended up behind bars for far less.

With the FBI still investigating whether Clinton broke public corruption laws, Hillary may be out on the trail, but she’s not out of the woods.