The Most Awful Election Ever Just Got Worse

Jim Comey became the most famous FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover last week, when he made an announcement that the agency would be reopening its investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private server while Secretary of State. The controversial decision has sent the most contentious presidential race in U.S. history into a tailspin as Tuesday's election approaches.

When Comey announced in July that the FBI had concluded its investigation and would not be recommending that criminal charges be filed, Democrats sung his praises, while Republicans did everything but burn him in effigy. After this week's announcement, the roles were reversed. Republicans have made much hay of a candidate being "under FBI investigation" on Election Day, while Democrats have lambasted Comey for making a vague and irresponsible announcement that could mislead voters.

Comey informed Congress that although he'd told them the investigation was concluded, emails discovered in an unrelated investigation required his agency to take another look, obliging him to update them on the status. If Democrats have a beef with Comey, it's that his lack of specificity was unnecessary and potentially damaging. Beyond that, they need only a mirror to assign the rest of the fault.

The FBI discovered the emails in question while investigating allegations that former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner had been sending lewd sexual text messages and selfies to a 15 year-old girl in North Carolina. Weiner, aka Carlos Danger, is married to Clinton's longtime top aide, Huma Abedin. During that investigation, feds seized Weiner's laptop, which is reported to have contained thousands of his wife's emails, many of which were to and from Clinton while both were working for the State Department.

It is true that the FBI had no indication as to whether these emails were new or simply duplicates of the emails Abedin had turned over during the investigation–the latter of which is entirely possible. In fact, the FBI couldn't even look at the emails at the time, since they didn’t have a warrant. It seems Comey could have done much more to highlight this possibility, or perhaps even wait until after the agency obtained a warrant and more was known on the emails before releasing the statement.

In his defense, the latter would probably not have been possible, not only logistically, but because word of the new emails would have very likely leaked from the agency prior to the election, giving the matter an even stronger odor of a cover-up and provoking even more backlash from the public. There have been widespread reports of deep divisions within the FBI with a large contingent of agents (as well as outspoken former agents) infuriated by Comey's July announcement, in which no charges were recommended.

Also, Democrats would do well to remember that Abedin signed an affidavit swearing that she'd turned over all devices on which she'd made such communications during the initial investigation. If her husband's laptop proves otherwise, how is Comey responsible for the integrity of such declarations? That would be a blatant mistake by Clinton's team and further evidence that they were either reckless or dishonest stewards of such information. Even if it again is not ruled illegal, it certainly does nothing to help a candidate who so many voters already view as deeply flawed.

The unforced error by Team Clinton has also breathed life into other aspects of the debacle. Not only does it remind voters that many in the intelligence community disagreed with Comey's decision this summer, but it gives Republicans a chance to remind voters of the secret meeting held between former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on June 29, aboard a private plane on a tarmac at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. There are also reports that the Attorney General's office stifled FBI investigations into the Clinton Foundation and whether the State Department gave special privileges to its donors while Clinton was SOS, and a recent report from ABC News that suggested Clinton's State Department gave special treatment to foundation donors and "Friends of Bill" during the post-hurricane reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Don't get me wrong; this is unlikely to sway Clinton supporters from voting for her and certainly won't convince them to support her opponent, Donald Trump. They'll rightly point out that while the FBI isn't looking into Trump's emails, he is facing a fraud case in New York regarding his scam university later this month and another case regarding his alleged child-rape in federal court that will be heard in December. Imagine a President elect having to defend himself over accusations that he raped a young girl. They'll also point to the illegal use of his foundation to pay off personal debts and make political contributions, including one that smelled a whole lot like a bribe to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi whose office was investigating whether to file fraud charges against Trump University here as well; and that his companies have a long record of systematically destroying or hiding thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.

What the Clinton email rerun might do, however, is push voters who despise both candidates but were considering voting for Clinton as the barely lesser of two evils toward staying home, choosing none of the above or going third party. Whether that will ultimately swing the election is unknown, but what seems quite clear is that Democrats' failure to heed warnings within their own party that nominating Clinton would be a non-stop disaster and that her email scandal was a time bomb with the potential to produce an October surprise death sentence to the campaign could prove prophetic. Instead, they supported a terribly-flawed and contemptuously-disliked candidate, largely under the argument that she would be more electable than Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley. Indeed, Democrats just may have nominated the only person in their entire party (aside from Carlos Danger) who could have lost to a buffoon like Trump.