Inquirer editorial: Clinton skates, Trump hates FBI email decision

Discretion within reason is acceptable in law enforcement. But while few complain when leniency is afforded ordinary people accused of minor crimes, there will be many critics of the FBI's decision Tuesday not to recommend prosecution of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for carelessly handling top-secret emails when she was secretary of state.

Using his favorite medium for mass communication, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted, "FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow!" An earlier tweet by Trump said, "The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment."

In bringing up retired Gen. David Petraeus, however, Trump actually lent credibility to FBI Director James B. Comey's explanation of the Clinton decision. Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor for sharing classified information with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he was having an affair while serving as director of the CIA. Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $100,000.

Comey said Clinton was not recommended for prosecution because a yearlong investigation, including a review of more than 30,000 emails stored on several servers, had provided no clear evidence that Clinton "or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information." Comey said Clinton had been "extremely careless" and, were she simply a government employee, would likely deserve some disciplinary action.

The FBI decision came less than a week after questions were raised about the investigation's impartiality when former President Bill Clinton crossed a Phoenix airport tarmac to get to Attorney General Loretta Lynch's plane, where they had a 30-minute conversation. They said they never talked about emails. Nevertheless, Comey stressed that the FBI investigation "was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear."

Lynch, in attempting to deflect criticism of her airplane tête-à-tête, said Friday that she would accept the recommendations of the FBI and career prosecutors. But the public should expect to hear more about Clinton's emails.

The scandal rose from a Republican investigation of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The recently completed Benghazi probe didn't lead to charges against Clinton either.

Trump is unlikely to remove Benghazi or emails from his lexicon of Hillary topics, which is fine. A candidate's history, including Trump's, is fair game in a campaign. But voters should spend as much time considering each candidate's plans for America's future.