Both current and retired FBI agents are likely to be “way beyond disappointed” and will be “angry” by FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation today that no criminal charges be filed against presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server, according to a former FBI assistant director in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Comey said in a news conference that “no charges are appropriate” for Clinton’s use of a private server which she used to conduct official government business, including the receiving and sending of top secret documents.
Ronald T. Hosko, a former assistant FBI director and 30-year veteran of the agency, told the Daily Caller News Foundation:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
I know a lot of people will be way beyond disappointed. They will be angry.
There will be widespread frustration among agents about the fact she will be able to walk away.
As an FBI agent, I would have been fired and likely prosecuted if they caught me doing this.
Hosko’s remarks have added weight as he previously served as the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Criminal Division, which included overseeing all criminal and cyber cases.
Hosko, who personally knows Comey and only left the Bureau in 2014, said his former boss was saying that she was reckless but now the public needs to decide her fate in the November elections.
He is saying, ‘look, we’ll let the people decide.’ And part of that is telling them how poor her judgments were.
It isn’t how sloppy or reckless or foolish she was in handling her emails this way. It comes back to ridiculously poor judgment.
Comey said Clinton may escape “consequences” that could ensnare other federal employees for the same activity. But under federal regulations, Clinton will escape normal government sanctions because she’s no longer an employee at the State Department, Hosko said, adding:
If she was still with an agency, the agency can punish you, the agency can fire you, can suspend you. But she’s been out of there for three years. That’s not even an option here.
He said that he believes there will be widespread frustration among FBI agents about the fact she will be “to walk away from those internal consequences.”
Hosko also said Comey’s remarks were an indictment of the failure throughout the State Department. “This has been a disaster from State from top to bottom,” Hosko said.
Hosko is now the president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and previously led the FBI’s Crisis Management Unit in Quantico, Va., was also awarded the FBI’s Shield of Bravery.
In 2012, he was asked to serve as assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.
This report, by Richard Pollock, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
