FBI recommends 'no charges' in Hillary Clinton email scandal

The end of the year-long investigation into whether Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state warranted prosecution under laws designed to protect classified government data was announced at a press conference in Washington by FBI director James Comey.

Despite criticising the “extremely careless” handling of the emails, Comey said the FBI would not be recommending that prosecutors seek charges in the case.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes … our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” said Comey.

The FBI argued that in other similar cases a prosecution had been sought because the cases involved evidence of “willful or intentional” breaches of the rules, “vast quantities” of data or “indications of disloyalty or efforts to obstruct justice”.

“We do not see that here,” Comey said.

“We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the Department is appropriate,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon in a statement. “As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved,” he added.

Nonetheless, Comey revealed that of the 30,000 emails returned to the state department, 110 emails in 52 chains were determined to contain classified information at the time they were sent.

Eight of those chains contained information that was top secret at the time, 36 chains contained secret information at the time, and eight contained confidential information, the lowest level of classification, he said.

Clinton has always insisted that no classified emails were sent or received using her private account, although the Guardian reports that some were later reclassified by intelligence officials when the state department began publishing some of the traffic in a transparency exercise.