I found this posted elsewhere--admittedly, from a less-than-neutral website; but it is still spot on, I believe:

JUST IN: Here’s WHY Comey Reopened Hillary Investigation

I think the real reason that Comey changed his stance on Hillary Clinton and her email scandal is multi-faceted. First off, he probably had a hard time living with himself after he let her walk. He knows how it made him look and multiple associates of his told him he had ruined not only his own reputation, but that of the FBI. Then there is the ever growing stack of resignations piling up on his desk. FBI agents that have been with the agency for years just couldn’t stomach what he did. Then there is Comey’s wife, who urged him to come forward. That’s a lot of pressure on anyone… I think Comey saw this as a shot at redemption and jumped on it.

Unfortunately, as Fox Business put it: “James Comey, who was once regarded as the Eliot Ness of law enforcement, a modern day straight-shooter impenetrable to political pressure, will instead leave the office of FBI chief as something closer to Inspector Clouseau.” That is pretty much spot on… now Comey is roundly hated on both sides and Clinton is on the war path to take him down. I believe he did the right thing reopening the case. If he hadn’t, he surely would have been the center of an investigation and prosecution himself. He had no choice in this.

James Comey’s decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.

‘The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,’ said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.

‘Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,’ said the source. ‘They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.’

According to the source, Comey fretted over the problem for months and discussed it at great length with his wife, Patrice.

He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.

‘He’s been ignoring the resignation letters in the hope that he could find a way of remedying the situation,’ said the source.

‘When new emails that appeared to be related to Hillary’s personal email server turned up in a computer used [her close aide] Huma Abedin and [Abedin’s disgraced husband,] Anthony Weiner, Comey jumped at the excuse to reopen the investigation.

Every law enforcement official out there believes this should never have gotten to this point… not if Comey had just done his job in the first place regardless of politics. There is just sooo much overwhelming evidence against Clinton that this should have been a no-brainer. Instead, here we are.

There has been a near mutiny within the FBI over this and Comey is being shunned. No one wants to talk to him and no one within the agency supported him on letting Clinton skate. I guess he is trying to rectify that now and he is trying to fix some of the damage. But some of it will never be able to be fixed because he caved to political pressure in the first place. Trust in his integrity is gone. It remains to be seen if he will really follow through here on doing the right thing.

JUST IN: Here Right Wing News

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"In his second inaugural address, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt sought 'unimagined power' to enforce the 'proper subordination' of private power to public power. He got it…"—George Will, July 8, 2007

he had to choose risking going against the hatch act or getting grilled by chaffez and gowdy and possibly losing his pension

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New evidence. Based on the evidence they had, he did not recommend prosecution. New evidence came to light, so they are investigating. Cases get reopened all the time due to new evidence.

When they are done investigating the new evidence, they will either recommend prosecution or they won't. Depends on what they have.

Reopening the investigation was the right thing to do.

The only real question here is whether or not he was right to disclose that the investigation into Hillary's e-mails continued.

as I understand it the senate investigation never officially closed

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Probably not, I was referring to the FBI investigation.

He had to disclose the information to congress, the real question is who in congress leaked the letter to the press. I suspect that a democrat did it so as to say Comey is trying to rig the election in favor of Trump.

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Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

Donald Trump

In a way, it was re-opened due to nothing more than timing...

NOT timing of the election, but the timing of when the FBI started the Weiner investigation and the timing of when the laptop was discovered and the emails not handed over during the Clinton email server investigation were found...

The laptop (and Weiner's other devices) were handed over in early October....Obviously, we don't know whether that laptop was looked through first, second or sixth, but I imagine the FBI wouldn't stop the device-searches the second they found something...More logically, they would've searched all devices first, and then say they found something...

Also, they had to create a program that searched for the metadata for all 650,000 emails (a metadata search only reveals the "To" and "From" of an email...maybe the "Subject", too...It doesn't reveal the body of the email...For that, they needed a warrant, which they've received just a couple of days ago)...It was after they've created the metasearch program and executed it that they found thousands of emails with Hillary Clinton correspondence (And since Hillary has admitted that she ONLY used her private server while Secretary of State, these emails are 100% from her private server)...

At the EARLIEST, Comey would've known about this sometime in the middle of October...Since his letter to Congress was on the 27th of October, then the time between his knowledge of the new evidence and the time he officially re-opened the case was less than two weeks...

Even if he re-opened it the SECOND the new evidence was found, the Democrat fury would've been the same...Yelling "Comey's doing this four weeks before an election!!!!" would've been no different from yelling "Comey's doing this two weeks before an election!!!!"...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Four weeks actually would have been worse for them. All those early voters... and would have detracted from the "Trump on a bus talking about women", message they were pushing.

Whether worse or better, they STILL would've yelled "...so close to the election!!!!...

You can't find one Hillary supporter that is currently saying "Good thing Comey did this now instead of two weeks ago."...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

Comey and the FBI were boxed in from the start by the DOJ lawyers and prosecutors working with the Clinton legal team, offering immunity to key players, and limiting focus to classified documents. Nothing was going to happen to hrc and the FBI/DOJ assured that outcome. They also burned up a year "investigating" thus limiting information and allowing hrc's campaign to move forward. Loretta Lynch put the prosecutorial decisions in Comey's hands and now she's yelling foul that he is fulfilling a pledge to keep congress informed.