The New York Times has a long story about the role FBI chief James Comey played in shaping last year's election. Buried well into the piece is this bombshell:

Responding to questions from The Times, the Justice Department confirmed that it had received a criminal referral — the first step toward a criminal investigation — over Mrs. Clinton's handling of classified information. But the next morning, the department revised its statement. "The department has received a referral related to the potential compromise of classified information," the new statement read. "It is not a criminal referral." At the F.B.I., this was a distinction without a difference: Despite what officials said in public, agents had been alerted to mishandled classified information and in response, records show, had opened a full criminal investigation. The Justice Department knew a criminal investigation was underway, but officials said they were being technically accurate about the nature of the referral. Some at the F.B.I. suspected that Democratic appointees were playing semantic games to help Mrs. Clinton, who immediately seized on the statement to play down the issue. "It is not a criminal investigation," she said, incorrectly. "It is a security review."

It is now an article of faith among Democrats that James Comey unfairly interfered in the election in October to help Hillary Clinton. And while this doesn't absolve Comey from the general charge that he could have handled the Clinton investigation much better, Clinton defenders rarely note that there are many indefensible ways in which the Obama administration aided and abetted her from the consequences of what appeared to sensible Americans as plainly illegal behavior.