Editorial: Clinton’s email error is a blot on her resume

Follow @csteditorials

“Extremely careless” is not a line presidential candidates hope to put onto their resumes.

Hillary Clinton undoubtedly is breathing a huge sigh of relief after the head of the FBI said on Tuesday that he is not recommending criminal charges against her for using a private email server while secretary of state. Running for president while under criminal indictment could be kind of tough.

Yet, at the same time, the FBI concludes Clinton was “extremely careless.” That’s sure to be a major sound bite for her critics straight through to November, and legitimately so.

Follow @csteditorials

FBI Director James Comey’s announcement in all likelihood ends the threat of criminal charges. “No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said.

But Comey also said the State Department under Clinton treated the security of email lackadaisically. That confirmed an earlier report by the State Department’s inspector general, which concluded Clinton’s private email server violated department policy and was not consistent with federal laws on record-keeping.

Clinton does not appear to have set up the private email server with gross negligence or criminal intent. But she should have been more forthright in her explanations once the matter became public. As secretary of state, she dealt with sensitive information whose unintended release could have had serious ramifications around the world. To have been so cavalier about following rules and taking precautions is hard to understand or defend.

It also, obviously, was a mistake for Bill Clinton to meet privately recently at an airport with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch before the FBI announced its decision. That’s simply asking for a spate of conspiracy theories — already making the rounds on social media — that Hillary Clinton pulled strings to avoid an indictment. In sports, they call that an unforced error.

The State Department’s shaky record of protecting its own email system from leaks gives Clinton some cover. So does former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s admission that he, too, used a personal email account for public business. As for Clinton’s presumptive opponent, Donald Trump, he has been extremely careless about a wide range of issues. His carelessness in retweeting an image of the Star of David against a backdrop of cash — an image earlier used on anti-Semitic websites — is only the latest example.

Clinton has given hundreds of news media interviews, but she has gone more than six months now without a full press conference. That, too, does nothing to foster an image of openness and accessibility.

Clinton is a quality candidate for president, with a respected record as a senator and secretary of state. Trump suffers terrifically by comparison.

That makes it all the more disappointing that Clinton invited attacks on her judgment by bungling her handing of her email — and husband Bill added to the stupidity.

Follow the Editorial Board on Twitter: Follow @csteditorials

Tweets by @CSTeditorials