MSNBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell said on Tuesday that the FBI completely disputed Hillary Clinton’s prior claims about her private email server after FBI Director James Comey announced that he would not recommend charges against Clinton for mishandling classified information to the Justice Department.
Host Tamron Hall asked Mitchell how the Clinton campaign should handle the news from Comey after he stated that 110 pieces of classified information were found on Clinton’s server.
"It’s going to be very tough. I mean, they’re going to point to the fact that there is no criminal prosecution recommended," Mitchell said. "But the fact is, she has been saying for more than a year now that she never sent or received anything that was classified at the time and his analysis completely disputes that, her main argument. He speaks of the carelessness of it."
"He also spoke to the fact that it was likely hacked by hostile actors," Mitchell added. "That would mean Russia, China, even possibly North Korea, the major Internet and cyber war actors, the fact that she used her devices overseas, that it was careless to use, to have classified information stored, not just on the private server, but the fact that she was passing information back and forth to people in the State Department, and they were using the unclassified State Department system, not the classified system."
"So, the carelessness and the criticism of that carelessness at the State Department, which he said was unusual in the U.S. government, is also on her watch," she said. "This is politically very damaging, not as damaging as a prosecution obviously, not as legally fraught as the prosecution would be, which could be disabling for a nominee, a presumptive nominee, just weeks before the convention. But the fact is, this is a big political hit. It is not the complete exoneration that they would have hoped for."