If the intent is again to damage a candidate, the report release date would be kept closer to the election. Or am I missing something?
The closer a hit is to an election, the less time there is for the news to pass and be handled.
Case in point, the 11th hour GWB DUI disclosure back in 2000.
But then maybe they are worried that the Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world on October 31st and tie up the news cycle.
And: Four days before the election in 1992, Clinton, Inc. managed to get a premature release of the fact that Caspar Weinberger had been indicted (by a liberal judge and jury) for Iran-Contra; which, of course, was a “scandal” simply because American Communist media and politicians couldn’t stand that the U.S. would stand up to communism in South America. The Weinberger story had a big, big impact on the election four days later, helping put Clinton into office.