The federal probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server has been going on for six months already, but a decision over whether to indict her or her top aides could still be some time away, bringing speculation that charges could be filed during a general election campaign.
"I don't know that there's any magical cutoff date," Ron Hosko, the FBI's former assistant director of the criminal investigative division, told
The Hill, commenting while the FBI and Justice Department continue to refuse comment about the details of the probe.
The probe began last July, after the intelligence community's inspector general issued an alert about the possibility that classified information had been mishandled, after Clinton admitted she'd used a personal email on a private server for official and personal communications while she was secretary of state.
Thousands of emails have since been released, with more than 1,300 turning up as being determined classified, even though the State Department and Clinton's campaign say none of them were deemed classified when they were initially sent.
Hosko, who is now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, said the FBI "incredibly sensitive" of the political significance of its investigation, but FBI Director James Comey told a Senate committee that the probe is independent, as "we don't give a rip about politics."
Bradley Moss, an attorney specializing in national security and classified information, though, said Clinton herself may not bear the brunt of charges, saying he'd be more worried "if I am Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, or Jake Sullivan," close aides who sent or forwarded the emails to her.
"It'd be a lot harder to make a criminal charge for having received [classified] information," Moss said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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