Hillary Clinton emails: the legal battle may be coming to an end, but the political war rumbles on

The FBI’s decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton or her aides brings the legal battle over her private email server almost to an end, but it leaves behind a cache of ammunition for a political war that will last for months, if not years, to come.

FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring the criminal indictment that Ms Clinton’s opponents had hoped for and her supporters feared. But, he added, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified correspondence as Secretary of State.

You can already hear the arguments being played out at campaign stops and in TV news studios at least until the election in November. Donald Trump, on the stump, will loudly and repeatedly yell the phrase “extremely careless”, while Ms Clinton and her surrogates will hammer home the FBI’s conclusion that her sloppy email practices were unintentional, not criminal.

After a year-long investigation that has dogged her presidential bid, the news from FBI Headquarters came on the same day that President Barack Obama planned to join Ms Clinton on the campaign trail for the first time. To supporters, that’s a political one-two punch; to critics who believe she was saved from prosecution by political considerations, it is a bitter irony.

Mr Trump hit out immediately on Twitter, describing Mr Comey’s announcement as evidence of a “rigged system”, a theme that is likely to take hold among the Republican's supporters and campaign surrogates – especially given Bill Clinton’s ill-timed social call to Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney General, as her plane sat on the tarmac at Phoenix airport last Monday.

Ms Lynch insisted the meeting was informal and the case was not discussed, but its timing stoked outrage among Republicans and dismay among Democrats. On Friday, the Attorney General said she would accept the conclusions of prosecutors and the FBI, an arrangement reportedly planned for months, but announced early to smother a potential political firestorm.

Few who consider the Clintons untrustworthy will have their minds changed by Mr Comey’s statement, nor by Ms Clinton’s lawyerly responses to the issue. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press this weekend after she was interviewed by the FBI, she repeated her claim that she “never received nor sent any material that was marked classified” via her private server.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, told Politifact that Ms Clinton’s comments were probably accurate, but added: “I also believe that it is so carefully crafted as to avoid a more important question, which is whether there was information in her email that should have been marked classified.”

While many voters have already made their choice between Ms Clinton and Mr Trump, some could still be swayed. The Bernie Sanders stragglers who were waiting to see whether Ms Clinton would face an indictment may at last lend her their support. Conversely, they may see Mr Comey’s criticisms as a reason to stay home or vote for a third-party candidate on election day. Some previously reluctant Republicans might now rally to Mr Trump (or against him).

The email scandal looks set to join a long list of controversies, from Whitewater to Benghazi, from which Ms Clinton and her husband have escaped without prosecution, but not without political damage. The cases end, but – fairly or unfairly – the clouds remain.