James Comey's rationale for not referring Hillary Clinton's email crimes to the Justice Department rested almost entirely on a single, quite thin, legal and ethical plank, which was that she did not act intentionally when she sent and received classified emails over her home-brew server. Though his argument for deferring prosecution was mostly specious, it did contain at least a shred of credibility in that as Comey described the situation to the American public and Congress, Hillary had no motive to intentionally put American national security at risk.