WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will have to decide whether Hillary Clinton or any of her subordinates could face legal consequences for her use of a private e-mail server, a decision whose timing is fraught with serious political repercussions.
Even though Attorney General Loretta Lynch has said there is no “artificial deadline” for concluding the investigation, the Obama administration is in the unenviable position of conducting an election-year probe that, no matter the outcome or reassurances to the contrary, will result in grievances about its impact on the election.
The FBI for months has investigated whether sensitive information that flowed through Clinton’s private e-mail server was mishandled. The State Department has acknowledged that some e-mails included classified information, including at the top-secret level, although Clinton has said she never sent or received anything that was marked classified at the time. The inspectors general at the State Department and the U.S. intelligence community are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken.
“It will always be either too soon or too late,” said Stephen Vladeck, an American University law professor and national security expert. Lynch told Fox News this week that there was no “artificial deadline” for completing the investigation.
