Did FBI Director James Comey's email announcement break the law?

FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress reporting a renewed look into emails that could be related to Hilary Clinton's private server rocked the presidential race on Friday.

The Clinton campaign and supporters have jumped on Comey for making such a dramatic announcement so close to an election. The question being raised now is whether the timing and style of the announcement make it illegal.

The claim

Democrats allege this is more than just an 11th-hour inconvenience. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid says Comey may have violated a law known as the Hatch Act by making the investigation public this late in the election season. In a letter to Comey, Reid said the move revealed a "clear double standard" and accused Comey of using his position as FBI director to influence the election.

"In tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department. You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton."

To further his claim of a double standard, Reid also accused Comey of sitting on evidence of ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

The case

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority or influence to affect the result of an election.

An official complaint was filed with the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics by Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under the George W. Bush administration from 2005 to 2007. Painter wrote about his decision in an op-ed for The New York Times on Sunday, calling Comey's move "an abuse of power." He also added:

"The rules are violated if it is obvious that the official's actions could influence the election, there is no other good reason for taking those actions, and the official is acting under pressure from persons who obviously do want to influence the election."

Painter told NPR's All Things Considered Monday that Comey's first mistake was giving in to pressure from lawmakers who wanted to be kept posted on any further investigations related to Clinton.

"They do not have an obligation to do that," Painter said. "He never should have promised Congress that he would give them updates with respect to Secretary Clinton, when he doesn't do that with respect to anybody else, when it's clear that the only reason they want the information is politics."

And in the Times, Painter raises another concern about Trump and the Russian government, echoing Reid's claim of a double standard between the FBI's actions toward Clinton and the GOP candidate's public encouragement that Russia hack Clinton's emails.

"But it would be highly improper, and an abuse of power, for the F.B.I. to conduct such an investigation in the public eye, particularly on the eve of the election. It would be an abuse of power for the director of the F.B.I., absent compelling circumstances, to notify members of Congress that the candidate was under investigation. It would be an abuse of power if F.B.I. agents went so far as to obtain a search warrant and raid the candidate's office tower, hauling out boxes of documents and computers in front of television cameras.

"The F.B.I.'s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election."

Whether there was or wasn't good reason for Comey's announcement is certainly up for debate. Stephen Vladeck, constitutional law professor at the University of Texas, Austin, said on C-SPAN Monday that Comey's letter left him "flabbergasted" and "raises serious questions about the FBI director's judgment."