Blake Neff on October 29, 2016

The Washington Post’s editorial board has abruptly soured on FBI director James Comey, lamenting the “bad timing” of his announcement that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails are once again under investigation.

Just four months ago, the same editorial board was heaping praise on Comey, saying he was being criticized by Republican lawmakers simply for “doing his job.”

“If Republicans believe the FBI director is corrupt and political, they should have the gumption to say so,” the board said in a July 6 editorial. The board added that it was “disheartening” for Republicans, who “should know better,” to “impugn the professionalism of the FBI director and his agents, particularly after Mr. Comey’s measured, fact-based presentation.”

They even suggested Republican “wreckers” were undermining the rule of law by “cast[ing] baseless aspersions on U.S. law enforcement in the service of their partisan goals.”

But after Comey’s shocking Friday announcement that he had re-opened the investigation due to new email discoveries, the Post’s confidence in Comey’s “measured, fact-based” approach evaporated. In a new editorial, the paper lamented “the damage Comey’s bad timing could do” and suggested he had placed the America in peril.

“It behooves everyone in a position of official responsibility to do everything he or she possibly can to help maintain stability — while avoiding all avoidable provocations — until the bitter competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump runs its ugly course on Nov. 8,” the board says in its latest piece.

The Post acknowledges Comey “may have had good reason” to announce the case’s reopening, but still criticizes his “unfortunate” timing, since it has the “potential to affect a democratic process in which millions of people are already voting.”

The Post also faults Comey for reigniting a scandal they claim shouldn’t have attracted so much attention in the first place.

“By revealing [the investigation], he inevitably creates a cloud of suspicion over Ms. Clinton that, if the case’s history is any guide, is unwarranted,” the Post says.

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