You can abuse power by being corrupt, but you can also abuse power by being morally vain: believing that your own reputation for probity is more important than anything else.
James B. Comey sent a short letter today to his own employees. Here is the key graf:
Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.
Putting aside the telling number of uses of the first person pronoun, there is so much wrong with this letter.
First. "In the middle of an election season?" Dude, this ain't "the middle." This is the end. People are already voting.
Second. "There is a significant risk of being misunderstood." A significant risk? How about "a certainty." Don't you know that one of the two candidates is Donald J. Trump, a man not known for nuance or subtlety. Even before this, he was repeatedly promising to prosecute his opponent, and he was encouraging his supporters to chant “lock her up.” Was there really only a "risk" that he would use your letter to tar his opponent with criminality? Please.
Third. What is "misleading to the American people" is making a dramatic announcement that one would expect only if you knew you had come across game-changing evidence. Here, all you knew when you submitted your letter is that there is a stack of emails "that we don't know the significance of." Although you may think you are the most sensitive, righteous, and just man in the world, no one was waiting for you to appear dramatically to announce you don't know anything.