We don't know what the made up scandal would have been. But we do know there would have been one. He might very well have been under FBI investigation for some ridiculous reason. And people would have taken Comey's nonsense a lot more seriously than they do William Barr's antics.
Second, I doubt Trump would have been his opponent. I will always believe that Trump was nominated because of Benghazi. The GOP voters filled their hearts up with such hatred that they couldn't help but vote for him, the guy who was feeding their hatred the most. It wouldn't have been quite as severe under Biden. Not because it is really true that HRC has always been their mortal enemy--people forget that they cooled off regarding her for a few years. But because it would have been harder to swift boat Biden as much. That's partly due to their different circumstances, like who they could credibly go after with their lies about Benghazi, partly due to her gender, and partly due to the idea that as a former first lady--a Clinton who had previously been in power--she supposedly had all sorts of power to abuse.
So I think Biden, after being thoroughly swift boated, might have lost to Marco Rubio, or possibly even Ted Cruz, Scott Walker or Chris Christie. The key is James Comey. He was pretty easily manipulated by partisans at the FBI and intelligence community inspector general's offices. Could he have been persuaded that their was a perfectly legitimate reason why a presidential candidate had to be publicly investigated in the middle of an election? If he was, then once again there would have been a July press conference that involved statements that were deliberately worded to allow people to conclude that he had been given a free pass on wrongdoing, and Paul Ryan would have once again feigned sincerity as he passionately proclaimed "this defies explanation."
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