So, we now know that Hillary Clinton won’t face criminal charges for using a personal email server to conduct sensitive government business when she was secretary of state. But that’s about all we know.

The lack of an indictment does not resolve much. Clinton is not just another former government official. She is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and presidential elections are evaluations of judgment and character. Her mishandling of this matter raises serious questions about both.

FBI Director James Comey said the former secretary and her staff had transmitted some classified information through the private email account, and were “extremely careless” with sensitive communications. But the FBI investigation found none of the aggravating factors that have led the government to seek criminal convictions in the past, such as a large volume of material, criminal intent, lying to investigators or disloyalty.

Comey made the right call when he said, “No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

But we are left with a political question, not a legal one: What should a “reasonable voter” do?

Clinton and her supporters think that voters should move on and focus on the differences between her and her likely opponent, Republican Donald Trump. But that’s not so easy.

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In 2008, political math wizard Nate Silver developed a five-part test to determine when a news story about a politician qualifies as a scandal — he calls it EMPSCAT, or the Electric Minor Political Scandal Acid Test.

Under Silver’s rules, Clinton’s email controversy gets a very bad score. These are the questions:

1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence sound bite (but not easily refuted or denied with a one-sentence sound bite)?

Yes to the first — the secretary mishandled secret information, putting national security at risk. No on the second — her explanation is complicated and evolving.

2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate’s brand? Yes. Clinton’s experience, especially as secretary of state, is the cornerstone of her campaign.

3. Does the scandal reinforce a core negative about the candidate? Yes. Clinton’s biggest problem is that many people find her to be untrustworthy or dishonest.

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4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical? Yes. Clinton’s situation is unique. Most previous secretaries of state did not rely on email, and the one who did, Colin Powell, used a private account but not an unsecured private server. Trump has many attackable weaknesses, but he has not yet been trusted to take care of state secrets.

5. Is the media bored, and does the story have enough shock value to crowd out all other stories? It’s hard to predict that any story could push Trump out of the public eye, but Clinton should have no illusions that the media will stop looking for new angles on this story, or that voters will forget about it.

The problem is that Clinton’s response to the controversy has been incomplete at best and deceptive at worst. She has said that setting up a private email server was a mistake, but she has never fully explained why she did it. She has claimed that it was a matter of convenience, but it seems that there is much more that she is not saying.

Her behavior suggests that she was more afraid of political enemies in the U.S. government and the press than she was worried about the intelligence services of rival nations. That’s a dangerous mindset for a secretary of state, but a potentially catastrophic one for a president of the United States.

Clinton has not held a news conference since Dec. 4, 2015. It’s high time she faces the media now, and answers unscripted questions about this whole affair. She needs to say what she did, why she did it and what she learned from the experience if this story is not going to haunt her campaign.

Some will argue that the computer system Clinton employed seven years ago to send email is an significant detail compared to the consequences of a presidential election in 2016. But that’s what makes Clinton’s handling of this matter so troubling.

The direction of the country — affecting billions of people around the world — could be determined by Americans’ suspicions about Clinton’s judgment and character. How she responds to those questions will be a telling test of her leadership.


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