never mind. that was the message james comey, the f.b.i. director, sent to congress on sunday in his latest headline-grabbing interruption of the 2016 presidential race. having dropped a bomb packed with innuendo on oct. 28 when he informed congress that there was a new stash of emails that <u+201c>appear to be pertinent<u+201d> to the investigation of hillary clinton<u+2019>s use of a private email server, mr. comey had to dig himself out. on sunday, he reaffirm ed his original decision in july to recommend against charging mrs. clinton for her careless handling of emails containing classified information when she was secretary of state. the new emails <u+2014> on the computer of anthony weiner, the estranged husband of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s close aide huma abedin <u+2014> contain nothing except personal messages and duplicates of emails that had already been reviewed, investigators found. but you can<u+2019>t unring a bell. the damage mr. comey<u+2019>s back-and-forthing has done to the election, to his own reputation and to that of the f.b.i. is profound. nine days of early voting passed after he made his rash announcement about the new emails, an announcement made when he and his investigators knew nothing about the content of those emails because they didn<u+2019>t even have a search warrant. that was nine days during which millions of voters went to the polls under the false impression <u+2014> created by mr. comey<u+2019>s action <u+2014> that there was new evidence against mrs. clinton, showing possible criminality. republicans who were full of gleeful praise for mr. comey only days ago are furious once again. <u+201c>comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he can<u+2019>t possibly know,<u+201d> newt gingrich, an adviser to donald trump, wrote on twitter. mr. trump himself had cited mr. comey<u+2019>s courage last week, but on sunday he told a rally: <u+201c>you can<u+2019>t review 650,000 emails in eight days. you can<u+2019>t do it, folks.<u+201d> ( memo to mr. trump from the average law firm associate: yes, you can.) meanwhile, democrats, who only days ago were calling for hearings into mr. comey<u+2019>s handling of the investigation, reacted to the latest announcement with something between weary vindication and anger. mr. comey<u+2019>s harmful intrusions into the democratic process are a perfect illustration of why the details of investigations involving candidates before an election are not made public. in fact, the justice department has longstanding rules against such disclosures for this reason <u+2014> rules mr. comey disregarded, apparently in the severely misplaced hope of protecting his own reputation. the f.b.i. is the top law enforcement agency in the country; its investigative authority is powerful enough to destroy lives or swing elections. that<u+2019>s why the director<u+2019>s term is 10 years <u+2014> a recognition of the importance of insulating the person in that role from the raging fires of partisan politics. mr. comey, who was confirmed to the post in 2013, has seven years left in his term <u+2014> a long time for a bureau chief to operate under the suspicion of partisanship. the question for him now is whether he can identify a path to restoring the credibility of his leadership, and of the f.b.i. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion), and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this editorial appears in print on november 8, 2016, on page a18 of the new york edition with the headline: the question for james comey. today's paper | subscribe
the question for james comey
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