It takes a special kind of genius to find yourself loathed both by the Trump and the Clinton camps. Yet that is precisely what the director of the FBI, James Comey, has managed to achieve, and in just a few short days. It surely represents something of a record, and is an extraordinary turn of events, or rather two mutually-cancelling turns of events, in what has been the strangest presidential campaign in modern history (and possibly ever). Whoever loses this election will be right to feel aggrieved; but the winner will also be less than well-disposed to Mr Comey.

The blundering of the FBI director has done his career prospects little good, then. But the damage done to his agency and the wider political climate is potentially much more grievous. Always viewed with a mixture of fear and curiosity but carrying a certain prestige and mystique – Elvis Presley, after all, wanted to become a special FBI agent-at-large – the FBI deserves better than to have its reputation for impartiality dragged into question. True, the Bureau’s history, especially under its long-standing chief J Edgar Hoover, has been mixed, its motivations not always honourable, and its role in politics shady and unwanted. Tales of Mr Hoover’s ability to blackmail serving presidents who wanted to retire him are the stuff of legend, and echoes of that era rebound in the case of Ms Clinton’s emails. Still, many expect more of their G-men.

And so it is that the American electorate is faced with the choice that the FBI either tried to interfere in the electoral process on two occasions, and in opposite directions; or that it did so only once, with the other intervention, either before or after, following the best impartial traditions of the civil service; or that the accusations and then their retraction (in effect) were simply the routine work of law enforcement officials doing their jobs (albeit chaotically). The charitable explanation is that they messed up, but without any partisan bias. Unfortunately, many Americans may be more prone to the rich array of conspiracy theories already circulating, none of them helpful to restoring trust in politics and the federal bureaucracy.