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4 An Unpre­ce­dented Election on the closing of the investigation specifically ­because it broke with this pre­ ce­dent. Miller went on to critique the content of the press conference. In addi- tion to announcing that ­there would be no criminal charges brought against Clinton, Comey harshly criticized her conduct. Miller wrote that, in ­ doing so, Comey “­violated time-­honored Justice Department practices,” “set a dan- gerous pre­ce­dent,” and “committed a gross abuse of his own power” (Miller, 2016, para. 1). He argued that the press conference ­ violated rules designed to protect subjects of investigation “[Comey] ignored ­ those rules to editorial- ize” and “recklessly speculated” about ­ things for which he had “no evidence” (Miller, 2016, para. 7). Criticism of Comey grew when, on October 28, he sent a letter to Congress to inform them that the FBI was examining e-­mails discovered on a computer linked to a long-­time Clinton aide. Two former deputy attorneys general, one who served ­under former president Bill Clinton and one who served ­under former president George W. Bush, jointly authored an op-ed chastising Comey for his intervention into the election (Gorelick & Thompson, 2016). In the edi- torial, they explained that the FBI has a long-­standing policy of not comment- ing on po­liti­cal ­matters in the 60 days prior to an election and, thus, that Comey’s letter was literally unpre­ce­dented. Trump’s Department of Justice appears to have agreed with this characterization. In a now infamous memo, Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general ­under Trump, wrote that “almost every­one agrees that the Director made serious ­mistakes” (Norwood & God- frey, 2017, para. 4). Rosenstein called Comey’s ­ handling of the e-­mail investiga- tion “a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do” (Norwood & Godfrey, 2017, para. 7). If the actions of Rus­sia and the FBI created historically unique challenges for Clinton, tensions between her and the media ­ were a well-­established fea- ture of her nearly 40 years of public ser­vice. However, the extent to which Clinton’s ­handling of her private e-­mail server dominated coverage of her is noteworthy. A study conducted by Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy found that, despite the seemingly end- less litany of controversies surrounding Trump, Clinton’s scandals received more media coverage (Patterson, 2016). Furthermore, whereas coverage of Trump’s scandals changed as each new controversy emerged, coverage of Clin- ton’s scandals focused almost exclusively on her e-­mails. A study conducted by researchers at Gallup, Georgetown University, and the University of Michi- gan found that e-­mails dominated what ­people reported having heard about Clinton “almost ­every week of the campaign” (Edwards-­Levy, 2017, para. 3). Another study found that a full quarter of all mentions of Clinton on Fox News included a reference to her e-­mails (Leetaru, 2017). Network nightly news broadcasts devoted nearly three times as much coverage to Clinton’s e-­mails as all policy issues combined (Boehlert, 2016). Comey’s letter about Clinton’s e-­mails led media coverage six of seven days from October 29 to November 4, 2016 (Silver, 2017).