Hillary Clinton’s email scandal has spiraled in many directions. Here’s a cartoon to explain how it started.

The FBI announced Friday that it was renewing its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, after deciding not to press charges in September after their initial investigation. For months, the "email scandal" has haunted Clinton's campaign, and conservatives have used it to feed into a larger message: that Clinton can't be trusted.

Just look at all the stories Breitbart puts under the "Hillary Clinton Email Scandal" tag. It's a mishmash of stories — including ones about her hiding health problems, which have nothing to do with email. All the articles together weave a storyline that seems more egregious than the individual parts.

But at the core of it, there really are problems. And we should be able to talk about those problems with clarity. Vox's Jeff Stein created a concise framework about the scandal, and we made a cartoon that pinpoints the primary issues at play.

First, let's walk through what actually happened

To understand what exactly it was that Clinton did, we need to understand what an email server is. It’s the technical underpinning of the controversy.

It’s basically like a post office. It's a computer connected to the internet that sorts through letters and delivers them.

And much like a post office, the server has three jobs:

So that means the person in charge of this digital post office — a postmaster, if you will — has an important job. This person has to implement security features to make sure the server can do its job well. This person also has control of the messages coming in and out.

Normally for the secretary of state, this responsibility would've belonged to people in federal government who have the expertise to maintain email systems.

But when Clinton was offered an email address on State Department servers, her staffers refused. Instead, they used a server in the Clintons’ home, maintained part time by two staffers.

We don't know why Clinton used a private server. She says it's because she only wanted to carry one mobile device — and since State Department devices only allowed for State Department email addresses to be added to the phone, she chose to use her personal device and her personal email.

But this is what led to multiple problems — including the FBI reopening its investigation today — and multiple storylines around those problems.

Problem 1: Clinton made herself vulnerable to hackers

Clinton's private server had several potential points of vulnerability, so it was possible for spies to hack into the system — both to view messages and to reroute messages.

There was no evidence that Clinton's server was breached, but hackers are good at covering their tracks, and the FBI hints that it thinks a hack was likely.

On Clinton’s servers, an FBI investigation in July 2016 found 81 email chains that ranged from confidential to top secret, but intelligence agencies overuse these labels, so it's unclear if revealing these emails would've actually threatened national security.

There was "gross negligence," according to the FBI.

Eventually, Clinton's staff hired a private company to run the email servers in Secaucus, New Jersey. This was a more secure option, but still not ideal. In fact, if we're talking about pure security, it's unclear what the best option would've been.

Even if Clinton used the State Department email servers, it wouldn't have been foolproof. The State Department has been accused of having poor institutional security, which manifested in a 2015 hack of its unclassified email system.

Problem 2: Clinton may have been trying to skirt transparency laws

Email servers are physical computers — and the person who controls those servers has your data.

When Congress was investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, it asked the State Department for Clinton's emails. But the department only turned over eight emails. That's because Clinton's emails were on her own server, not theirs.

That said, Republicans have insisted Clinton did this to avoid having her emails released or subject to the Freedom of Information Act. In other words, the accusation is that she did it so the public couldn’t see her communication. This goes to motive, which means it's difficult to prove either way, and anyone who claims otherwise is speculating.

But the idea that she is actively trying to hide her communication feeds into a more absurd accusation that we should dismiss: that Clinton tried to delete emails from her server during the House's Benghazi investigation. Vox's Jeff Stein has a good timeline showing why this theory makes no sense.

Problem 3: There’s an open FBI investigation — and it may not be resolved by Election Day

FBI Director James Comey said Friday that his agency is renewing its investigation because of emails it found during another investigation that pertains to the case. That other investigation might be into Anthony Weiner’s alleged texts to an underage girl — and Weiner is married to Clinton aide Huma Abedin. My colleagues have a deeper explanation of this here.

But the FBI hasn’t named the other investigation, and there are very few details available about the content of the mails in question. And the fact that the FBI is reopening the investigation doesn’t necessarily mean these emails are important to building a potential criminal case against Clinton. In fact, Comey’s message says the case was reopened specifically to find out if there was any classified information in those exchanges.

But this is a separate problem, because it’s very possible the investigation will not be over by Election Day. Whether or not those emails contain classified information, it helps Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, drive a narrative that he’s been pushing all along: that Clinton broke laws and is a criminal. In fact, he’s already said this second investigation is “bigger than Watergate.”

Here’s the thing, though: It probably isn’t — but we might not know by Election Day.

What has been lumped into this storyline: the idea that Clinton is compromised

There is another completely separate case that has to do with emails but gets thrown into the "Clinton email scandal" bin as well. The right-wing transparency group Judicial Watch obtained emails between top officials at the State Department and the Clinton Foundation.

Some think it shows that people who donated to the Clinton Foundation received preference from the secretary of state's office. There is no evidence to back this up, and this storyline has nothing to do with Clinton’s private server. It's another story, like the one about Clinton’s health, that is woven into the larger narrative that she can't be trusted.

What we should actually take away from this

There are two primary problems we know of right now with Clinton's decision to use a private email server.

The first is cybersecurity. The FBI concluded that Clinton and her staffers were not fully aware of the threat they exposed themselves to. It points to a larger problem with government, where public servants outside the intelligence agencies often treat cybersecurity as an afterthought. Last year, Congress did pass a law that allows private companies to work with government to improve cybersecurity, and this year President Barack Obama created a commission on cyber defense. But there are still massive political and bureaucratic problems that the next executive has to deal with.

The second issue is transparency. The Obama administration has been among the "least transparent" in recent history, even though Obama promised greater transparency during his 2008 campaign. The administration has kept entire government programs secret, stonewalled public records requests, and viciously gone after those who leak information.

An Associated Press investigation found that the backlog of public records requests grew 55 percent under Obama. So whatever Clinton's motive was for the private server, it brings up concerns about whether the public's right to know will continue to erode under the next administration. And Trump hasn't exactly been the model for transparency either, though he has tried to create the illusion of it.

Both of these are massive, nuanced issues that raise real questions about how Clinton or Trump would govern. It touches on two increasingly relevant issues about our data — how we should protect it and who should be able to see it. But they’ve been reframed into this amorphous narrative about trust.

Correction: A previous version of this story said Clinton's server contained 81 emails ranging from "classified to top secret," but it should read "confidential to top secret." There are three levels of classified information: confidential, secret, and top secret.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via