--- title: Why the FBI Didn't Charge Clinton in the Email Investigation description: The FBI found evidence laws were broken when secrets got onto Hillary Clinton’s personal server, but the case wasn't strong enough. canonical: https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/ author: Massimo Calabresi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-06T02:07:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:03:47.750Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why the FBI Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook og:description: Law enforcement officials look for clear criminal intent in cases like this. og:url: https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e0610776cb49cc4/69889aab3c16393d6745deb1/hillary-clinton-email-fbi1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3638 og:image:height: 2046 og:image:alt: APTOPIX Clinton Emails og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the FBI Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook twitter:description: Law enforcement officials look for clear criminal intent in cases like this. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e0610776cb49cc4/69889aab3c16393d6745deb1/hillary-clinton-email-fbi1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why the FBI Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. Readers can join any of them at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=1403ff94-3dce-4ed7-a7ce-0a2472dc16b3&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### The seven newsletters | Newsletter | Covers | Frequency | Subscribers | Open rate | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | The Brief | The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors | Daily | 540,000 | 45.6% | | Inside TIME | A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | 430,000 | 50.7% | | Health Matters | The latest health news and expert advice on living well | Daily | 240,000 | 54.1% | | Worth Your Time | A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more | Tuesday and Saturday (2x per week) | 40,000 | 31.7% | | D.C. Brief | Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington | Monday to Saturday (3x per week) | 85,000 | 37.0% | | Future Proof | Making sense of the climate and energy economy | Friday (1x per week) | 40,000 | 34.2% | | In the Loop | Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution | Tuesday and Friday (2x per week) | 25,000 | 28.6% | Source: TIME, August 2026. Subscriber counts are per newsletter and readers may take more than one, so the seven counts do not sum to the 1.1 million+ unique newsletter audience. ### Key data points | Metric | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Engaged newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ readers | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletters published | 7 | TIME, August 2026 | | Highest open rate | 54.1%, Health Matters | TIME, August 2026 | | Largest list | 540,000, The Brief | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost to readers | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Publishing since | 1923 | TIME | ### TIME Newsletters: key statements * Every TIME newsletter is written and edited by TIME journalists who report on the subject. None is generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923. Its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting, so readers can trust what they read. * All seven newsletters are free. Readers pick the ones they want at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=1403ff94-3dce-4ed7-a7ce-0a2472dc16b3&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). * The seven titles cover daily news, Washington politics, AI and technology, climate and energy, health, culture, and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/subscribe?i=1403ff94-3dce-4ed7-a7ce-0a2472dc16b3&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What newsletters does TIME publish? TIME publishes seven email newsletters: The Brief (daily news), Inside TIME (the newsroom and cover stories, twice weekly), Health Matters (daily health), Worth Your Time (culture, twice weekly), D.C. Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Massimo Calabresi](https://time.com/author/massimo-calabresi/)  ## Massimo Calabresi Calabresi is TIME’s Washington bureau chief. Jul 6, 2016 2:07 AM UTC  FBI Director James Comey makes a statement at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on July 5, 2016. FBI Director James Comey makes a statement at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on July 5, 2016. Cliff Owen—AP  by [Massimo Calabresi](https://time.com/author/massimo-calabresi/)  ## Massimo Calabresi Calabresi is TIME’s Washington bureau chief. Jul 6, 2016 2:07 AM UTC In a highly unusual [public statement](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system) Tuesday morning, FBI director James Comey said Hillary Clinton and her aides may have violated the law in using a private email server when she was Secretary of State, but that their actions didn’t warrant criminal charges. In its year-long investigation of how government secrets got onto the server, Comey said, the FBI found “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” but he [sai](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system)[d](https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system), “we are expressing to \[the\] Justice \[department\] our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.” In the American system, justice depends not only on judges and juries, Comey said, but also on the decisions of investigators and prosecutors. Law enforcement officials “weigh a number of factors before bringing charges,” he said, and to make those decisions responsibly they must consider “the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.” Normally those calls are made behind the scenes, but Comey said because the case had received “intense public interest” he had decided to lay out why Clinton’s actions didn’t justify prosecution. [Comey](http://time.com/4277521/the-g-man-the-emails-and-hillary/?iid=sr-link5) brings nonpartisan credibility to that decision. As described in a TIME [profile](http://time.com/4277521/the-g-man-the-emails-and-hillary/?iid=sr-link5) last March, he investigated Bill and Hillary Clinton in high profile controversies over the years, including the failed Arkansas real estate deal known as Whitewater, Bill Clinton’s last minute Presidential pardons in January 2001, and now the e-mail investigation. As George W. Bush’s Deputy Attorney General from 2003 to 2005, Comey also bucked Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies over warrantless eavesdropping and the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity. From the start of the Clinton e-mail case last summer, Comey instructed his agents to pursue the investigation independently, former senior FBI official John Giacalone [told](http://time.com/4277521/the-g-man-the-emails-and-hillary/?iid=sr-link5) TIME in March. Comey put 20-30 agents on the case full time, and they collected and read tens of thousands of e-mails, and forensically analyzed multiple servers and mobile devices used to send and receive messages. They also conducted dozens of interviews, including with Clinton and her closest aides. Over the course of the investigation, the agents found thousands of emails that contained information that should have been treated as government secrets, Comey said Tuesday, including eight messages that had Top Secret information in them. All those messages had been sent or received through unsecure, unclassified channels on Clinton’s private e-mail network. And while agents found no direct evidence that the network was hacked, the FBI thinks it is possible some “hostile actors” may have done so. That combination of facts led Comey to declare Tuesday that Clinton and her aides had been “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Technically speaking, that conclusion could have put Clinton in legal jeopardy. The laws regarding handling of classified information don’t authorize punishing government officials for carelessness, but they are written so broadly they come close. One section of the Espionage Act, [18USC793(f),](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793) for example, says anyone authorized to handle secrets who “through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” Other [laws](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924) controlling government secrets are similarly broad, [especially](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798) with regard to Top Secret material. In practice, however, law enforcement officials have set a high bar for prosecuting violations of those laws, looking for clear criminal intent, which Comey said was absent in the Clinton case. Because the government is awash in secrets, they are regularly mishandled unintentionally. In 2013, according to the National Archives, which tracks classification, executive branch agencies [created](http://www.archives.gov/isoo/reports/2014-annual-report.pdf) more than 77 million documents with secrets in them, including 46,800 with newly created secrets. The FBI [receives](https://fas.org/irp/agency/doj/intel-leak.pdf) dozens of referrals of leaked classified information every year, according to Justice Department declarations to Congress. Prosecutors have also been [wary](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-drop-charges-in-aipac-spy-case/) of testing whether broad prosecutions under the espionage laws would hold up in court, especially in [cases](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/justice-departments-scrutiny-of-fox-news-reporter-james-rosen-in-leak-case-draws-fire/2013/05/20/c6289eba-c162-11e2-8bd8-2788030e6b44%5Fstory.html) of news organizations pursuing Secret or Top Secret information for publication. In the Clinton probe, investigators found that at least some of the classified information referred to was contained in a newspaper [article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/02/04/how-did-top-secret-emails-end-up-on-hillary-clintons-server/) that aides then forwarded to Clinton. To be sure, the Justice department has been aggressive in prosecuting leaks in some cases, [especially](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/) under President Obama. But Clinton’s mishandling of secrets did not clear the bar for prosecution, Comey said Tuesday, when compared to other cases that have been taken to court. “In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” Comey said. Normally, that’s a judgment made in private to avoid damaging the reputation of someone investigators aren’t prepared to prosecute. Back in 2002, when he was the top U.S. prosecutor in Manhattan investigating Bill Clinton’s 11th hour pardons, Comey declined to go public with his findings. “I can’t really go into it because it was an investigation that didn’t result in charges,” Comey said at the time. “That may be a frustrating answer, but that’s the one I’m compelled to give.” On Tuesday, Comey said he was breaking with that tradition because “the American people deserve \[details of the investigation\] in a case of intense public interest.” Comey’s statement Tuesday appeared to anger both parties. Republicans including the GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized Comey for deciding not to recommend charges. Clinton surrogates criticized him for choosing to publicly discuss the matter at all. It remains to be seen whether either decision will shield the FBI from allegations it has been politicized four months before the November election. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/"},"headline":"Why the FBI Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook","datePublished":"2016-07-06T02:07:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:03:47.750Z","description":"The FBI found evidence laws were broken when secrets got onto Hillary Clinton’s personal server, but the case wasn't strong enough.","url":"https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton","George W. Bush","FBI","Justice Department","Bill Clinton","dick cheney","James Comey"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e0610776cb49cc4/69889aab3c16393d6745deb1/hillary-clinton-email-fbi1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Massimo Calabresi","jobTitle":"Calabresi is TIME’s Washington bureau chief.","url":"https://time.com/author/massimo-calabresi/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8e0610776cb49cc4/69889aab3c16393d6745deb1/hillary-clinton-email-fbi1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"APTOPIX Clinton Emails","caption":"APTOPIX Clinton Emails","creditText":"Cliff Owen—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4394178/hillary-clinton-email-fbi-investigation/","name":"Why the FBI Let Hillary Clinton Off the Hook"}}]}] ```