If we were in a courtroom you would learn that what HRC did was not what Trump is accused of doing. Hillary’s alleged crime was conducting State Department official business emails on her personal server in potential violation of one of these:
- The Federal Records Actrequires agencies hold ontoofficial communications, including all work-related emails, and government employees cannot destroy or remove relevant records.
- FOIA is designed to "improve public access to agency records and information."
- The NARA regulationsdictate how records should be created and maintained. They stress that materials must be maintained "by the agency," that they should be "readily found" and that the records must "make possible a proper scrutiny by the Congress."
- Section 1924 of Title 18 has to do with deletion and retention of classified documents. "Knowingly" removing or housing classified information at an "unauthorized location" is subject to a fine or a year in prison.
Hillary did not have to give personal emails back - the problem was she was the one who filtered what emails were personal versus state official business. She claimed to have given all but personal back. She didn’t destroy or hide physical files marked classified at the highest top secret levels that are meant to be stored in specific way if you handle them. THAT IS WHY Trump lied at first about BEING able to declassify what he was in his possession as actual physical files.
It’s not possible to ever know (unless the Russians ever answer Trump’s 2016 request) that what was deleted from Clinton's private server contained damaging classified material and it was her intent to hide some deliberate nefarious activity or took classified material to use for personal gain or to show to the wrong people. HRC has never been found to have violated the letter of the law.