FBI not pursuing charges on Hillary Clinton local experts weigh in
The FBI director announced Tuesday he will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email account during her time as secretary of state.
The announcement is generating a lot of controversy and questions with many wondering if Hillary Clinton is totally off the hook. A local former federal investigator and a local legal expert spoke to FOX 2 about what's next.
"You don't charge someone if you don't think you can get a conviction," said Peter Henning, former Assistant U.S. Attorney.
And Peter Henning says Hillary Clinton's mishandling of her emails through private servers - isn't likely to land a conviction.
"You have the facts to charge it - but did you have the proof of intent," Henning said. "That's what was missing. Bad, stupid decisions. Stupidity is not a crime - at least not yet.
"Intent to remove or misuse documents -that never seemed to be there."
And, Henning says FBI Director James Comey - a former deputy director in the Department of Justice - is more than qualified to make that call in a highly politicized case.
"He comes from the Republican side," Henning said. "He was in the Bush Justice Department as a senior official so he has the kind of credibility that a Democratic political appointee just doesn't have."
"If Jim Comey tells me that, I'm going to believe him," said Andy Arena, former head of the FBI's Detroit office. "I mean this is a guy who stood up to the Bush administration and basically threatened to walk out as deputy attorney general of the United States because of something they were doing that he felt was illegal.
"That's the type of guy he is."
Former special agent in charge of the FBI Andy Arena has known Comey for 30 years. He says what happened on this day isn't likely to change anybody's mind.
"Whatever your political affiliation is, that's the way you're going to go," Arena said. "Either way this investigation turned out, it wasn't going to change many people's minds -that's just the reality of the world we live in."
A world, a country where now the voters will decide what happens next for Hillary Clinton.
"Extreme carelessness - you could even almost say that it was reckless," Henning said. "How then Secretary of State Clinton could take out her Blackberry and start tapping out emails when she was in Russia - you just don't do that. But that's stupidity - that's not a crime."