A scandal that should be disappearing in Hillary Clinton's rearview mirror has become a constant source of criticism as the former secretary of state continues to make inaccurate statements about her private email use whenever she is asked about it.

On the one-month anniversary of the FBI's decision to close its investigation of Clinton's emails without recommending charges, the Democratic nominee struggled through a question about her honesty by claiming she had "short-circuited" several recent answers to email-related questions.

An MSNBC reporter forced Clinton to confront the email investigation Friday in response to answers she had given Fox News' Chris Wallace five days earlier. A deluge of fact-checks and op-eds took Clinton to task this week for telling Wallace that FBI Director James Comey had affirmed the truthfulness of her email statements.

The Washington Post gave her "four Pinnochios," Politifact rated her claim "Pants on Fire," (the highest available rating from either fact-checker) and the New York Times slammed her in an editorial for misrepresenting Comey's testimony.

The FBI director said in a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last month that Clinton's public statements matched what she told investigators, but admitted the evidence uncovered during the year-long probe contradicted those statements.

Clinton has shied away from the media in the month since the FBI issued a scathing indictment of her "extremely careless" handling of classified material, granting few interviews and continuing a hiatus on press conferences that has lasted since December.

But in the handful of interviews she has given, Clinton has shifted her defense of the controversial email server in ways that leave enough lingering questions to keep the controversy alive.

In an interview with CNN just days after the FBI's announcement, for example, Clinton accused Comey of "speculating" about the cybersecurity threats her server faced.

She has repeatedly argued that, because no member of her staff raised concerns about the legality of the server, she had no reason to question its continued operation, leaving many to wonder why her aides never suggested switching to an official system.

Clinton's refusal to address directly the discovery that she and her aides were negligent in their treatment of classified material has given her critics a reason to extend the email scandal beyond what could have been its conclusion.

The revival of the controversy each time she has provided a deceptive answer has underscored the deep trust deficit that plagues her campaign. Most voters continue to rate her as dishonest, although her low favorable numbers are still higher than her Republican opponent's.