There is little question that Clinton's delegates may have had a more difficult time rejecting Bernie Sanders' claim to the nomination based on primary irregularities if Clinton was also under indictment. Sanders was more likely, if not virtually certain, to have defeated Trump had he been nominated instead of Clinton. Comey's errors and their specific timing therefore changed history, and the October 28 letter provided him a defense that he was at least balanced in his political impact for and against Clinton.
The last straw apparently dropped when Comey testified to Congress on May 3, 2017 less than a week before the Memorandum and firing and little more than a week after Rosenstein's confirmation by a Senate vote of 94-6 on April 25 th. Comey offered as justification for his improper October 28 letter the false dichotomy between whether he would "speak" or "conceal" the existence of potentially new Servergate evidence. This logical fallacy was an appallingly weak, propagandistic, defense for again violating the tradition that prosecutors and their investigators "refrain from publicizing non-public information." It is understandable that this illogical misrepresentation of his actual range of options in dealing with the possible new evidence revealed incompetence that would finally trigger the Memorandum and consequent firing of Comey sooner rather than later, once Rosenstein was installed in the chain of command to properly initiate that process.
There is a strong argument that since his July 5, 2016 press conference helped rig the election against Sanders Comey should have been fired for the very reasons that the Deputy Attorney General explains in general terms of enduring principle. The Memorandum only deals expressly with Comey's role, without addressing Lynch's equal culpability, or even Obama's role. It does not discuss the facts about Comey's failure to include the Clinton Foundation within the scope of the Servergate investigation. Clinton Foundation conflicts of interest furnishe a possible Servergate motive, which Comey erroneously claimed was necessary for prosecution.
Even narrowly framed, the Memorandum is nevertheless an important historical document because it now clearly forecloses future FBI Directors from using the Comey precedent to play presidential politics with the government's powerful investigatory powers, notwithstanding improper conduct by an Attorney General, or even a President, in encouraging him to do so. The Memorandum concludes with a section of quotes from former high level DOJ officials critical of Comey's unprecedented actions. This helps to establish the wide bipartisan support for those principles which the Memorandum finds Comey violated.
The contents of the Memorandum have been largely ignored, except to misrepresent it as a coverup for the supposed "real" reasons "Comey was actually fired." This is a gratuitous insult to Rosenstein. Propagandists favor speculation about the impact of a change of FBI Directors on the Clinton Democrats' preferred subject of the ongoing investigation of Russian "hacking," or collusion with the Trump campaign, in the 2016 election. It is unlikely that the Russians' hypothetical impact on the election could have been any greater than Comey's impact is known to have been. Comey was as responsible as Clinton herself for making Trump president instead of the popular Sanders.
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