Comey and fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe continue to view themselves as great public servants despite this report. Both have long careers and, at times, did some great things. But by 2016, they became so infected with own hubris that they damaged — not defended — the FBI as an impartial investigator of facts. By believing and continuing to believe that only they could save the Union, they betrayed their oaths and lost their way. Each also intervened unethically to protect themselves, McCabe in orchestrating a leak to correct a news article on himself and Comey who issued the October letter (it seems) out of fear he would have problems remaining FBI director if he didn’t come forward.

The FBI will require more than the modest reforms suggested by the IG to restore its credibility. Its job is not to investigate campaigns and presidents but to fight crime, and any future investigations of political figures will require a balanced group of prosecutors and investigators, not a group of one-sided beltway elites far removed from the rest of America.