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In a letter to Congress FBI director James Comey said the agency had not changed its original conclusion that Mrs Clinton had acted carelessly over her private email server, but that she should not be prosecuted. Republican rival Mr Trump immediately hit back at the decision, telling a rally in Minessota that it was further evidence of a "rigged system". As his supporters chanted "lock her up" he bellowed: "Hillary Clinton will be under investigation for a long long time for her many crimes against our nation, our people, our democracy, likely concluding in a criminal trial. You have to understand, it's a rigged system and she's protected."

REUTERS The FBI will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her emails

Mrs Clinton's candidate's campaign was thrown into chaos last month when security agents revealed they were probing her over a new dump of emails found on the computer of the ex-husband of her top aide. The Democrat has been slipping in the polls and her campaign team and supporters had been putting the FBI under huge pressure to announce the findings of its probe before Tuesday's election.

GETTY Mr Trump said the decision was evidence of a 'rigged system'

Twitter The decision was announced by FBI director James Comey today

Today Mr Comey fulfilled that request, announcing that he would not be recommending criminal charges against the Democrat nominee over the revelations first made in a letter to Congress last month. In another letter to senior politicians he wrote: "Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation. "During that process we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State. "Based on our review we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton. "I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time."

GETTY The Republican candidate has made great political capital out of the emails scandal

Reacting to the news, Mrs Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon said: "We were always confident nothing would cause the July decision to be revisited. Now Director Comey has confirmed it." Meanwhile her communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters: "We're glad that this matter is resolved." FBI investigators are believed to have sifted through a massive 650,000 emails in just nine days to determine whether Mrs Clinton had a case to answer. The emails were discovered on a device owned by disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly sending explicit messages and graphic pictures to a 15-year-old girl. Congressman Weiner was married to Mrs Clinton's top aide, Huma Adebin, though the pair are now divorced. In a letter sent to Congress on October 28, Mr Comey dropped the bombshell that he was set to re-start the FBI probe into the server after the discovery of the "pertinent" exchanges, to see if any contained classified information.

US Elections 2016 in pictures Tue, November 8, 2016 The top photos following the campaign journey of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the US Elections 2016 Play slideshow Getty 1 of 57 US Elections 2016 in pictures