Hillary Clinton in Green Bay in March of 2016. (Photo: WTAQ)
The decision not to pursue charges over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to store classified information when she was Secretary of State is unlikely to sway many opinions about the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
Marquette University Law School political scientist Charles Franklin says that’s because most voters already had their minds made up about Clinton’s honesty in the case. “The opinions are unlikely to change,” he argues.
While the decision largely ends the legal battle, Franklin expects the political side of the case will linger. “I think there’s no question that Republicans will continue to use the email issue in their rhetoric and criticism of Clinton.”
However, Franklin doubts it will have much of an impact on the outcome of the presidential race. Much like the allegations of Clinton’s links to security in Benghazi during an attack on a US embassy, Franklin says “these two issues have had relatively little effect on changing people’s minds. Rather, they’ve been used to reinforce people’s minds.”