Attorney General Loretta Lynch officially accepted the FBI's recommendation that neither Hillary Clinton nor any of her aides should face criminal charges Wednesday, effectively ending the year-long investigation into their handling of classified information.

Lynch said in a statement she had met with FBI Director James Comey and career prosecutors earlier Wednesday and accepted their "unanimous" recommendations to close the case without bringing an indictment against anyone involved.

Her ruling came one day after Comey publicly blasted the former secretary of state for her "extremely careless" treatment of sensitive material before suggesting the FBI had not uncovered enough evidence to support a criminal case.