In October 2016, FBI Director James Comey threw a bomb into the presidential election. It was a choice that has since come under scrutiny as a potential catalyst for Donald Trump’s surprise victory days later. Eight years later, Trump and his allies are now accusing special counsel Jack Smith of doing the same in a massive preliminary investigation that was made public on Wednesday.

As always with Trump, his outrage is a case of reflexive reflection. When confronted with his own misdeeds, he instinctively tries to claim that he is the victim of an identical transgression. But it’s still worth explaining how Smith’s 167-page dossier differs from Comey’s one-page message and the vastly different circumstances surrounding the two.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States, the long-delayed federal case against Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results has finally resumed. That decision granted the former president presumed immunity for his “official acts.” Smith’s filing with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is his argument that Trump engaged in “unofficial acts” in which he was considered a candidate for office, not an officeholder, when he schemed with his co-conspirators.

‘They manipulated the elections. I did not rig the election,” Trump said in an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday evening. “They should never have allowed the information to be made public. But they did that because they wanted to hurt you with the elections. It is pure election interference.”

Trump repeated that claim on Truth Social, pointing to the Justice Department’s informal “quiet period” within 60 days of an election, which frowns on taking actions that could influence voters. He had previously alleged that Smith’s superseding indictment, obtained after the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, violated DOJ rules. That claim is extremely frivolous, as is Smith constriction the case against Trump, rather than trying to expand it.

I repeat: this is a projection on Trump’s part, as is the case with election interference. But there are some proponents of the Smith-Comey comparison, including former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, who asks in New York Magazine, “What’s the difference? Both violated the normal procedure of taking public steps shortly before elections that would clearly have an impact on those elections.”

But the differences are very real, both practical and political. To say that the two situations are similar is to compare apples and oranges – or, if you prefer, to compare the rumor that there may be an elephant in the room with being locked in a room with a very real and very threatening elephant.

Comey’s letter was, at best, intended to shield him from criticism. He had previously testified that an investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state had been closed. When several emails were found from that server during a separate investigation, he notified Congress that the case had been reopened. There was little more to say than that simple statement, as no information was provided about the contents of the emails — but it reignited the firestorm of criticism that had been Trump’s main line of attack against her.

Comey would write in his memoirs that he tried to do just that protect the integrity of the election: “It is entirely possible that because I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was confident she would be the next president, my concern about making her an illegitimate president could be undermined by the renewed investigation concealed had greater weight than it would ever have if the election seemed closer or if Donald Trump was ahead in the polls. But I don’t know.”

These newly discovered emails did not change the investigation into Clinton, which was closed again on November 6, 2016, two days before the election. The only impact it had was to potentially make Clinton more vulnerable to key voters. Clinton has attributed her narrow loss at least in part to Comey’s revival of the “but her emails” story.

Smith, whose file is part of an ongoing criminal case going to trial, had no control over the timing of the decision to make his document public – that was Chutkan’s choice. And the judge has made clear that the election is of little concern to her as she tries to get the case back on track after months of delay.

As MSNBC contributor Glenn Kirschner noted, part of the Supreme Court’s order was for Chutkan and other justices to decide whether certain actions qualify for presidential immunity. Smith’s filing is his reasoning for why the case should proceed, while most of the evidence itself is still sealed.

Finally, we should all keep in mind that the timing of this is because we are so close to Election Day due to Trump’s proposals that have slowed things down. If Smith had his druthers, he would have presented his case to a jury more than six months ago. We would have had a ruling on the issue, and while Trump would probably still have appealed, the time crunch he now whines about would have been a non-factor. Instead, we find ourselves in a position where Trump’s crimes are still being litigated. It is only because his legal strategy was a success that we see the evidence against him fall away the month before the election.