Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Jim Comey made an “unusual statement” today explaining why the FBI is recommending “no charges” in connection with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server.

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. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

Legal experts have been saying for a long time that criminal charges were unlikely, in the absence of intent to break the law, especially since former CIA Director David Petraeus was allowed to plead down to a misdemeanor for deliberately leaking classified information.

However, Clinton’s ill-advised e-mail practices will remain a political problem for the presumptive Democratic nominee. Comey underscored the “extremely careless” handling of classified information by the secretary and some of her colleagues. U.S. House Republicans plan to hold hearings on why the FBI didn’t recommend criminal charges. Today U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley called on the FBI to release more evidence from its investigation “so the public can make an educated decision on its own about the judgment and decision-making of all the senior officials involved.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Braun and Jack Gillum of the Associated Press examined six public statements by Clinton about her e-mails that were either questionable or untrue, based on the FBI’s findings. Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann repeatedly alleged today that the investigation had been “rigged,” saying Clinton had “lied” on many occasions and that “anyone else in the country” would be indicted for similar conduct.

I enclose below the full statements from Grassley and Kaufmann, along with some expert opinions on the case and some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments about the FBI recommendation. Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. Former Justice Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called Comey’s press conference “absolutely outrageous” and a violation of standard department practice not to comment on ongoing investigations.

UPDATE: Grassley told reporters on July 6 that he has written to Comey asking for answers to many questions about the e-mail investigation. He also said some senators are drafting a bill to revoke Clinton’s security clearance, adding that such a bill might be “an unconstitutional bill of attainder.”

SECOND UPDATE: Representative Steve King posted on Twitter on July 6, “FBI Dir. Comey/DOJ gave us truth but not justice. Confirmed, the Rule of Law took a heavy blow again from the Clintons. Obama is culpable.”

Press release from Senator Chuck Grassley, July 5:

Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement after FBI Director James Comey said the FBI would not recommend criminal prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite finding the mishandling classified information.

“While Director Comey made it clear that Secretary Clinton and her staff were ‘extremely careless’ in handling classified information, he also recommended no criminal prosecution even though ‘gross negligence’ regarding classified information is a crime. If it wants to avoid giving the impression that the FBI was pulling punches, because many people in a similar situation would face some sort of consequence, the agency must now be more transparent than ever in releasing information gathered during its investigation. Even Director Comey said there should be extraordinary transparency. That means more than simply giving the public a brief summary of his view of the facts. It should include the actual evidence so the public can make an educated decision on its own about the judgment and decision-making of all the senior officials involved. There are plenty of FOIA and congressional requests pending that have been on hold because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, so now the FBI should respond fully and completely to all of them.”

Iowa GOP press release, July 5:

RPI Statement On The FBI’s Investigation Of Hillary Clinton’s Secret Email Server

Des Moines, IA – Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann released the following statement on the FBI’s findings from its criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s secret email server:

“Hillary Clinton lied when she said she only used one device. She lied when she said over and over again that she ‘never received nor sent any material that was marked classified’. She lied when she said the State Department signed off on her use of a private server. If actions like this were taken by anyone else in the country they would be indicted. This all follows Hillary Clinton’s meeting with the FBI on Saturday at a time when most Americans were enjoying the holiday weekend and just days after Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately on the tarmac with former President Bill Clinton. This whole investigation by Obama’s Department of Justice has been rigged in Clinton’s favor, shows terrible judgment and raises a major conflict of interest on the part of the Department of Justice. The American people are sick and tired of the countless lies by the Clintons, and the President should not be campaigning with someone under FBI investigation or someone who has blatantly disregarded the rules of his own administration. “

Jason Noble reported for the Des Moines Register on Kaufmann’s comments during a conference call with Iowa reporters this afternoon:

“This is a rigged system that obviously is showing some blatant favoritism,” Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a conference call with reporters.

“That was just unbelievable to me,” added Tana Goertz, an Iowa-based senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “This has to be the shadiest deal ever.” […]

When asked if they thought Comey should resign, though, both Goertz and Kaufmann declined to go that far.

Donald Trump’s comments about Clinton’s e-mails during a July 5 rally in North Carolina, as reported by Sopan Deb of CBS:

Benjamin Wittes analyzed Comey’s statement at the LawFare blog:

This will be a politically damaging finding—as well it should be. It’s not uncommon for high-ranking officials to treat classification rules with a lack of deference. That said, it’s upsetting every time it happens. And notably in this case, this is not—as some prior reporting suggested—merely a case of Clinton’s passively receiving New York Times articles that contained, in an unmarked fashion, classified material. Comey makes clear that she both sent and received classified material and that “any reasonable person” in her shoes would have known better than to have such conversations.

These are strong words. And this paragraph will make for a lot of Republican talking points over the next few months. In all honesty, Clinton deserves these talking points every time. She should have known better. […]

Put it all together and you get a pretty damaging case in the political arena. Clinton behaved in a fashion a reasonable person would not have with respect to discussing highly sensitive material in a non-secure setting. We know that “hostile actors” gained access to the systems of her correspondents. And we can’t rule out that her own system was compromised. It’s not a pretty picture.

And that said, it’s very clearly not the sort of thing the Justice Department prosecutes either. For the last several months, people have been asking me what I thought the chances of an indictment were. I have said each time that there is no chance without evidence of bad faith action of some kind. People simply don’t get indicted for accidental, non-malicious mishandling of classified material. I have followed leak cases for a very long time, both at the Washington Post and since starting Lawfare. I have never seen a criminal matter proceed without even an allegation of something more than mere mishandling of senstive information. Hillary Clinton is not above the law, but to indict her on these facts, she’d have to be significantly below the law.

Writing for TIME magazine, Massimo Calabresi explained “Why the FBI Didn’t Throw the Book at Hillary Clinton”:

Comey brings nonpartisan credibility to that decision. As described in a TIME profile 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. […]

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. […]

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 more than 77 million documents with secrets in them, including 46,800 with newly created secrets. The FBI receives dozens of referrals of leaked classified information every year, according to Justice Department declarations to Congress.

Prosecutors have also been wary of testing whether broad prosecutions under the espionage laws would hold up in court, especially in cases 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 that aides then forwarded to Clinton.