Editorial: All in the family

In keeping with family tradition, Hillary Clinton has emerged standing from a criminal investigation into her email habits as secretary of state, even as the head of the FBI noted that virtually all of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s explanations for her behavior were distortions of the truth.

To the surprise of nobody, Barack Obama’s FBI chief James Comey said his agency would not recommend charges against Mrs. Clinton, despite “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information.” He added, however, that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

How many of those currently on federal probation or doing time at Club Fed would love to have their cases re-evaluated using Mr. Comey’s kid-glove approach?

Though the Justice Department makes the ultimate call on whether to prosecute, the FBI’s announcement effectively ends the case.

But while Mrs. Clinton won’t be staring down an indictment as she seeks the nation’s top office, she still has plenty to explain regarding her stunning aversion to the truth. As the Washington Post reported Tuesday, Mr. Comey “systematically dismantled the public explanations Clinton has offered to reassure the public about her email system for the last 15 months.”

Translation: Hillary Clinton lied repeatedly.

Remember when Hillary asserted she had never sent or received classified information on her private server? Or how her abetting supporters claimed anything that might have been classified had been retroactively deemed such? Not true. Mr. Comey found that “in 110 emails, the information was sensitive enough to be classified at the time it was sent” and that Mrs. Clinton should have known better than to compromise national security in this fashion.

Remember how Hillary vowed that she would cooperate with the probe and hand over all her work-related correspondence to the FBI? False. “Comey said the FBI has recovered thousands of work-related emails that had not been turned over,” the Post reported.

In addition, “Comey also revealed new details about the [email system’s] set-up, undermining Clinton’s promise that she had been fully transparent” about her communication arrangement. In fact, the Post reported, “Comey for the first time revealed that Clinton had used multiple different servers during her time in office.”

Mrs. Clinton will now trumpet all this as some sort of vindication. In fact, it’s a damning indictment of her character and rectitude.

Democrats are having a field day with Donald Trump’s ascension in the GOP. But their haughty smugness becomes laughable when they prepare to offer voters the ethical dumpster fire that is Hillary Rodham Clinton.