As of Tuesday morning, James Comey was the malicious or incompetent villain who had stolen the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. His last-minute letter to Congress, effectively reviving the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, either caused or coincided with Clinton’s slide into her historic loss.

Comey had also given misleading information to Congress a few days ago, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that Huma Abedin had forwarded “hundreds and thousands” of Hillary Clinton’s email messages to her husband, Anthony Weiner, when in fact she had sent relatively few. The false claim, which the FBI only clarified Tuesday in a letter, was repeated extensively both in the news media and by senators during other public hearings.