Entire Probe Into Hillary Clinton's Emails 'Was Tainted'

On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton based on a criminal probe into her use of a private server and email account. In an interview with Sputnik, David Schultz, Professor of Political Science at Hamline University in St Paul, commented on the findings of the intelligence agency.

According to Schultz, the email scandal should have ended Clinton's career as the careless handling of security information continues to raise "doubts of many Americans regarding trustworthiness or her honesty in general".

"This is a story that in a normal election in the United States should have ended her campaign," the expert said in an interview with Sputnik.

Meanwhile, the FBI found evidence that Clinton and her staff were "extremely careless" in handling highly classified information. However, FBI Director James Comey stated that the agency does not recommend bringing criminal charges against the former Secretary of State. Comey noted that the investigation had been done honestly and was not influenced by a third party. In his turn, Donald Trump said that the FBI's decision proves that the "system is rigged."

Replying to the question of how impartial the subsequent decision was by Attorney General Loretta Lynch to not bring charges against Clinton, Schultz said: "The whole investigation is clearly tainted."

According to him, the investigation can't be considered impartial because of two factors.

"First is that Bill Clinton's visit by Loretta Lynch clearly taints the entire investigation," Schultz said.

The expert referred to Bill Clinton's recent meeting with Lynch which was harshly criticized by Republicans. For instance, Trump said that Lynch had been bribed and promised that she would keep her job if she allows Ms. Clinton to escape prosecution. Other Republicans also criticized the FBI's investigation, with House Speaker Paul Ryan saying it defied explanation.

"The second is that even though the FBI said they did a clean investigation in terms of looking at what she did here, we have to remember that the FBI director appointed by the President of the United States is a Democrat; he is accountable to Loretta Lynch who is the head of the Justice Department. So there's gonna be lots of people who can raise a question saying that even if there wasn't explicit pressure to not prosecute, there still was a whole bunch of sort of unofficial pressures," the expert concluded.

On Wednesday, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she had accepted the FBI's recommendation to bring no charges against Clinton.

Following the decision, US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has asked FBI Director James Comey to release all of the unclassified findings from his investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and email account.