Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey opened and closed his statement to the press Tuesday with expressions of gratitude and pride to be associated with the bureau. His description of FBI agents’ work on the Hillary Clinton email investigation showed why he feels that way. Whether the rest of his statement—explaining why he wasn’t recommending prosecution of Mrs. Clinton—should make the feeling mutual is an open question.

The agents had to reconstruct thousands of emails from a series of private servers used...