Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani Tuesday blasted FBI Director James Comey for his decision to not indict Hillary Clinton in the email scandal, saying "this is the special exemption for the Clintons."
"It would be unreasonable for a prosecutor not to go forward with it and almost an abdication of duty," Giuliani, who was in office during the 9/11 attacks, told Gretchen Carlson on Fox News. "What was just laid out is what we would call a no-brainer in the attorney's office that Jim Comey worked at, he was one of my assistants.
"A reasonable prosecutor would have brought this case no doubt," he added. "I don't know how he ever, ever is going to be able to charge anybody in the CIA or the FBI who is extremely careless with top secret information, if he isn't charging Hillary Clinton.
"This is the special exception for the Clintons."
Comey announced that while the Democratic presidential nominee and her staff were "reckless" and "extremely careless" in the use of a private email server during her four years as secretary of state, the
FBI found no basis to file criminal charges against Clinton.
"Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before deciding whether to bring charges," Comey said in a news conference.
"They also consider the context of a person's actions and how similar situations have been handled in the past," he added. "In looking back at our investigations, into the mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts."
In a news conference after Comey's announcement, the State Department said that the agency would await how the Justice Department would proceed before taking any further action.
Both the FBI and the Justice Department are headed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who came under fire last week for a meeting with former President Bill Clinton aboard her private plane on the tarmac at Phoenix airport.
The meeting, which lasted about a half-hour, came the night before the special House Benghazi Committee released its report on the 2012 attacks that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two former Navy SEALs.
Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, pounced on Comey's finding that Clinton was "extremely careless" in using the private server in her home in Chappaqua, N.Y.
"The minute you say someone is extremely careless, you are saying they're grossly negligent," he told Fox. "That is what a judge will charge a jury. The judge will charge a jury: Has the government proven that she was?
"What do we mean by gross negligence? We mean extremely careless. Regular carelessness is not using the proper degree of care under the circumstances. Gross negligence is being extremely careless in exercising your responsibilities of this.
"That's what Jim Comey found," he said. "He then just didn't come to the conclusion that it's a violation of the statute."
He was just as virulent in an earlier interview with
CNBC.
"Gross negligence is the first definition in Black's Law Dictionary," Giuliani told Brian Sullivan on CNBC. "Gross negligence includes the words 'extreme carelessness.'
"Carelessness equals negligence. Extreme carelessness equals gross negligence, under the law. He knows that."
Giuliani, appearing somewhat stunned at the FBI director's announcement, told Fox that he was "so disappointed in this."
"I brought cases against the Teamsters Union during the 1988 election when it did serious damage to the Republican Party.
"Gosh almighty. You just put that out of your mind, you put all that stuff out of your mind.
"She violated [the law]," he said.
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