The election results are in, Donald Trump won, and all throughout the nights, media pundits asked a pressing question: did Hillary’s recent email scandal hurt her?
The morning after, everyone generally agreed that quiet supporters and rural voters bolstered Trump, rather than an email scandal, but no one can say for sure what role F.B.I. Director James Comey played in the elections Nov. 8 when he made his policy-violating, cryptic announcement that the F.B.I. was investigating more Clinton emails.
And if Comey himself did not affect Clinton’s results, Republicans seizing the news and running it through the gamut of conspiracy theories certainly did.
When he made his announcement, Clinton’s campaign immediately requested that he disclose everything the F.B.I. knew about the recent email discovery.
Instead, Comey retreated back into F.B.I. silence to continue the investigation of 650,000 emails found on Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s computer, keeping silent and avoiding making any clarifying comments about the nature of the emails or the length of the investigation. Many feared a Clinton win on Election Night might be marred in a few weeks by an indictment.
And then, just a few days later to a far less excited and eager media, Comey announced that the investigation concluded with no new charges.
Republicans immediately went into a bout of conspiracies, alleging that it was “impossible” for Comey to read 650,000 emails in only a few days. Trump made the claim himself at a rally on Sunday, two days before the election.
But not all 650,000 emails were Clinton’s, and software can easily filter out duplicates and emails sent to and from other persons. Its the kind of algorithms a restaurant location site uses. So instead, the list was cut down to a few thousand, and then quickly examined and dismissed as nothing new.
Actress Sarah Paulson took to Samantha Bee’s TV show “Full Frontal” to read out loud some of Clinton’s less exciting emails, to remind audiences that the hype around them vastly exceeds their contents. “Can you give me times for two TV shows? Parks and Recreation and The Good Wife,” said one email. "Gefilte fish – where are we on this?” said another.
The emails that have been released in recent months showed Clinton performing some of the duties people forget she performs, such as seeking refuge for a young Yemeni girl or offering aid for doctors in Haiti.
They did not show Clinton performing any pay-for-play system, attempting to lie to the government or trying to manipulate the world for her own financial gain. Nevertheless, Republicans seized any and every reference to her emails throughout the campaign cycle and attempted to spin their very existence as proof of Clinton’s corruption and weaknesses.
This January, Donald Trump will be president and Hillary Clinton will not. We can never know what role the emails truly played in how the election results unfolded. But we do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was never anything in the emails worth all this fuss and hubbub.