Donald Trump may be right. The election may be rigged. Blame FBI Director James Comey.

How, and to what extent, his 11th-hour actions, involving one of the major party presidential candidates, influence the outcome of the 2016 election remains to be seen.

But what is clear is that Mr. Comey was fully aware of the risk he invited by interjecting himself into the waning days of a highly charged campaign. By going public with what amounts to speculative fodder implicating the leading candidate, he effectively handed a political gift to the opposition.

He put the targeted candidate under a cloud of suspicion, which may or may not be warranted, by disclosing information not yet scrutinized by FBI investigators. Mr. Comey used the weight of his official position, as head of the nation’s law enforcement agency, to insert volatile supposition in the final sprint for the White House.

His move could possibly alter the ending of the race.

The FBI chief broke with Justice Department policy — upholding a bedrock principle of fair play — that restrains federal investigators from conducting ongoing probes in the public eye. He almost certainly violated the Hatch Act, implemented to prevent the abuse of power that can rig elections.

Mr. Comey knows that all law enforcement inquiries do not warrant prosecution. The case he concluded in July, concerning Hillary Clinton’s emails, was one of them. It lacked the incriminating evidence necessary to argue in court.

Mr. Comey understands that the role of the investigatory arm of the government is to investigate, not to hold postmortem news conferences to judge the behavior of those whose offenses do not rise to prosecutorial crimes.

But Mr. Comey held a postmortem news conference in July to pontificate about the “extremely careless” way Mrs. Clinton handled classified information in an email case in which no charges were filed.

Conversely, Mr. Comey demonstrated an abundance of caution regarding overwhelming evidence that a foreign power was trying to undermine the U.S. election with select computer hacking. According to a CNBC report, he concurred with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that Russia conspired to invade the digital network of the Democratic presidential nominee — after being encouraged to do so by the Republican presidential nominee.

Yet, according to the report, Mr. Comey declined to publicly affirm an Oct. 7th statement by the nation’s intelligence community about Russian-generated cyber theft, arguing it was too close to the election to risk undue influence.

Still, even closer to Election Day — just 11 days out — the FBI director apparently had no reservations about risking undue influence on the eve of an election with vague innuendo that might create a “misleading impression” about the Democratic nominee. Objections from the Justice Department, that such conduct might well affect the election, went ignored.

Mr. Comey made public pronouncements about newly discovered, but largely unexamined emails that could implicate Mrs. Clinton for mishandling classified information — or hold no significance whatsoever.

In a leaked memo to FBI employees, the director admitted not knowing much about the information and acknowledged that in “the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood.”

Of course introducing last-minute FBI speculation about the behavior of a presidential candidate, already derided as crooked by her rival, would be exploited and misunderstood.

Dropping a nugget of rich ambiguity in the last days of a tightening race immediately put one candidate on the defensive and the other on cloud nine. That is called influencing an election.

When the head of the FBI does it, in seeming violation of the Hatch Act — which bars the use of an official position to impact the course of an election — it is called abuse of power.

Mr. Comey’s unprecedented bearing on the presidential campaign, at this late date, may be enough to tip the election in states where the race is a virtual tie. That is wrong.

That is grossly unfair to the candidate forced to fend off vagaries that may be meaningless.

Even ultra-conservatives, such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, take issue with Mr. Comey’s decision to ignore protocol and “come out this close to an election” [with damaging insinuation].

Some might call that trying to rig the outcome.

Don’t let it happen Tuesday. Vote. Don’t go apathetic on your country and stay home.

Don’t let indifference or subterfuge call the shots. Vote as if your life and everything you hold dear depends on who wins — because it does.

Vote for stable, steady, proven leadership. And pray.

Contact Blade columnist Marilou Johanek at: mjohanek@theblade.com

First Published November 5, 2016, 4:00 a.m.