"But what I'm hearing from everybody... The F.B.I. is in full revolt right now. The F.B.I. has been in full revolt since the decisions made last summer."

Said Audie Cornish on "Meet the Press" today, claiming "some sources in the F.B.I. and the former district attorney's." (Cornish is the host of NPR's "All Things Considered.")

The moderator, Chuck Todd, immediately pushed her back: "Not full revolt. There's been a lot. I mean it's--there are agents--Let's not say full revolt." Todd was very controlling of his guests today, interrupting a lot. I thought it made him seem desperate.

Cornish continued:

CORNISH: All right, a semi-full revolt. Because what I'm getting at is if Comey hadn't said what he said to Congress and the rest of the world, it would have leaked. It would have leaked. That whole building was ready to leak that they had discovered this new source with Weiner and Abedin. So, I don't think Comey had much chance [choice?] here. And I think the F.B.I. is badly divided.

I think that explains a lot about why Comey got his letter out. There was also this, from Pete Williams (the "Meet the Press" justice correspondent), who who was asked whether Comey would "provide more details before the election" (as both the Clinton and Trump campaigns have requested):

PETE WILLIAMS: [That's not going to happen] based on what I was told just in the last couple of hours. I don't think they plan to say anything further. They believe that they did the right thing by telling Congress about this development. And their logic goes something like this: that the fact of the discovery of these emails was going to leak. That if it had leaked it would come out in all sorts of different ways and be interpreted in all sorts of different ways, and that the best way to handle this was just to get out in front of it. And secondly, they thought that if they waited till after the election and then it was discovered that they had found these emails, that would play into this whole scenario about how the system is rigged.

AND: Mike Pence was also a guest on the show. (And Todd really interrupted the hell out of him, but Pence kept his relentlessly on-task, solemn demeanor.) Pence brought out a point that I hadn't seen elsewhere: "[T]he F.B.I. director is keeping his word to the Congress that if new pertinent information came forward that justified the reopening of the case, that he would alert the Congress." If that's correct, that's the answer to the question why Comey came forward when he did.

Picking up the idea that Comey was keeping his word, that he had no choice, but a duty, Todd asked: "Do you think think Director Comey has a duty, though, to share more information of what's known?" Pence, ever somber, came out with: "I think he has a duty to move forward professionally and in a timely way on this." So, basically, no, Comey doesn't need to say anything more. In fact, Pence added, why doesn't Huma Abedin just put her emails out? Why does the Hillary campaign think the missing information should come from the FBI? If they sincerely want transparency, why don't they get transparent?