FBI sources have fanned new doubts about Ms. Clinton’s candidacy with inaccurate leaks about an investigation of the Clinton Foundation. This reflects poorly on Mr. Comey’s leadership and on the FBI.
.. The FBI, or at least a part it, has blasted right through Mr. Holder’s rules.
.. agents based in New York thought they should investigate whether donors to the Clinton family charity were given improper benefits by the State Department when Ms. Clinton was secretary. They were motivated in part by “Clinton Cash,” a book by the conservative author Peter Schweizer that was published in May 2015. According to The Post’saccount, when the FBI agents took their desire to probe the foundation to higher-ups, they were advised the evidence was thin.
.. But this group of New York agents apparently was unsatisfied, and someone decided to prosecute the case through leaks days before the presidential election. Most irresponsible of all was Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who declared an “avalanche” of evidence is “coming every day” and an “expansive” investigation into the foundation was ongoing and would lead “to likely an indictment.”
.. Without any substantiation whatsoever — indictments are returned by grand juries, not by special agents of the FBI — the headlines took off. The false report of an impending indictment was then repeated by Donald Trump.
.. The campaign has been hard enough with the ugly chants of “lock her up.” The last thing we need is to find the fingerprints of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency all over an 11th-hour smear of Ms. Clinton.