Poughkeepsie Journal Editorial Board

Despite recklessly using a private email server during her time as secretary of state and sending messages that included classified material, Hillary Rodham Clinton likely won’t be facing any criminal charges connected to her actions.

The court of public opinion, however, is another matter.

Clinton and her political operatives, including her husband former President Bill Clinton, have handled this alarming situation about as poorly as one could imagine.

First, she resisted the release of the documents. Then, she clearly misrepresented and even obscured the facts. And, last week, the former president added another layer of outrage by meeting with state Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which they called a chance encounter at an airport tarmac, but one that has raised many suspicions and questions of impropriety.

While she has not recused herself, Lynch has pledged to accept the recommendation of the FBI and career prosecutors over the email investigation, and FBI Director James Comey has concluded there is not sufficient evidence to recommend an indictment against Clinton. This occurred just days after Clinton was interviewed by FBI officials for more than three hours.

It’s important to note that Comey is a Republican and former deputy attorney general under George W. Bush. Nevertheless, with so much at stake and with such a cloud swirling around these matters, Republicans are not out of line to suggest a special prosecutor be named to look into this case. While some will never be satisfied unless a conviction comes about in this case, having an independent prosecutor look into the details and make the legal determination whether to bring charges would go a long way to reassuring the American people that conflicts of interest were avoided and that justice is being served.

Comey rightly condemned Clinton and her top aides as "extremely careless" in how they handled classified information during her time as the head of the State Department. He also revealed several facts that completely contradict what Clinton has been maintaining. The FBI director said agency found 110 emails on Clinton's server that were classified at the time they were sent or received, that Clinton had used not one but multiple private email servers, and that it was even possible Clinton's private server was hacked by foreign governments.

He added, "Any reasonable person … should have known that an unclassified system was no place" for that sort of information.

But he said those findings were not sufficient to support an indictment. Why? Because similar cases in the past, have involved either “clearly intentional and willful” mishandling of information, he said.

Yet many legal analysts say she still could be charged with gross negligence in mishandling classified information, and that assertion shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

While a State Department inspector general’s report noted that previous secretaries of state also poorly managed computer systems, those auditors also pointed out that the standards for email security were “considerably more detailed” by the time Clinton was in that highly sensitive position.

As the Poughkeepsie Journal has said before, government employees should be using official accounts when conducting public duties — and those emails and documents should be automatically archived as government records. There shouldn’t be any exceptions. Clinton has at least conceded what she did was a mistake. How bad the damage will be from the reckless decision remains to be seen.