Our View: FBI gave Hillary Clinton a break, but she's not off the hook

• Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" in handling classified information
• FBI's decision not to prosecute came with harsh scolding
• Bill Clinton's tarmac tete-a-tete was colossal bad judgment

The FBI says Hillary Clinton will not face criminal charges for being "extremely careless" in handling classified information.

This is neither the exoneration that she will make it out to be nor is it evidence that the system is “rigged,” as her likely Republican opponent for the White House tweets.

What the FBI found is troubling evidence of an unacceptably cavalier attitude about our national secrets on the part of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The FBI looked at about 30,000 Clinton e-mails provided by the State Department and found 110 messages in 52 e-mail chains contained classified information at the time they were sent or received.

In eight of those e-mail conversations, the information being exchanged was top secret.

ROBB: No, Clinton was not exonerated

The FBI said “hostile actors” possibly could have hacked Clinton’s private server, but there was no “direct evidence.”

FBI director James Comey’s criticism of Hillary Clinton’s carelessness was strong. It should have been. Our national secrets matter and should be treated with far more respect.

But despite “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey said.

Comey is a Republican who served in the administration of George W. Bush and has nothing to gain in a lame-duck Democratic administration from letting Clinton off the hook. To the contrary, he would have won huzzahs from Republicans if he had decided to indict her.

What’s more, he had a free hand to throw the book at her. Attorney General Loretta Lynch made it clear she would go along with whatever the FBI decided.

ROBERTS: Clinton was sloppy with our secrets but hey, not a felon

In persisting in calling the investigation “rigged,” Donald Trump is unfairly undermining public confidence in our system of justice, which is the envy of the world.

It is typical of Trumps's lack of judgment and his willingness to spout unsupportable allegations. He probably doesn’t know any better.

Someone who should know better is former President Bill Clinton, whose tarmac tete-tete with Lynch in Phoenix last week was a colossal show of arrogance that reinforced every stereotype about how the Clintons are ethically challenged and play by their own rules.

Even if he only discussed grandchildren (wink, wink) with Lynch, the meeting was about ingratiating himself to the woman who could put a noose around Hillary’s neck. He put Lynch in a very awkward position and provided double-barrel ammunition to his wife’s opponents.

BENSON:Jeez, more Clinton sleaze?

Is Bill secretly on Trump’s payroll? Hillary must be wondering.

More to the point, she cannot regard the scathing criticism from Comey as exoneration. The threat of an indictment has been lifted. But the investigation revealed serious problems that Hillary Clinton needs to discuss with a forthrightness that doesn’t come easily to her.