Showtime’s The Comey Rule is a must-see for every single American who is preparing to vote in the upcoming presidential election between Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. It’s an impressive, inclusive, informative, and undoubtedly entertaining, docuseries that will, sorry to say, make your blood pressure boil. But don’t fret. We can do something about it, after all, we are still a few weeks from the election on November 3.
Don’t be surprised if you are undeniably motivated to participate in the voting process beyond placing your constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Reach out, talk to people. This election—after witnessing the stellar Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleeson starring two-night event—is firmly the most important in our lives. That phrase is used frequently, but at this point, it is literally true—vote like your life depends on it… because it does.
Daniels plays the stoic James Comey, the former head of the FBI, as a leader who is about the integrity of the fabled institution—first and foremost. The Comey Rule starts its terrifying journey under the Obama Administration when the POTUS 44 appointed the agency stalwart who is universally hailed as a supremely wise choice. The FBI veteran was also working in the private sector and turned down the chance to make big money to serve his country. After all, you don’t say no when your President asks you to serve.
Fast forward to 2016 and two ships come colliding with Comey’s fate. The Hilary Clinton email investigation and the concrete proof that the Russian government, led by President Putin, was actively trying to influence and alter the American election in favor of Donald Trump. We all know the history of how those two things worked out and as laid out in the Showtime miniseries, it is painstakingly chronicled and detailed in such a manner that it is simultaneously compelling and revolting. You cannot look away. We know what happens, but the most important aspect of The Comey Rule is we all never knew the depths to which the FBI, the Justice Department, and the White House lived this historical episode in the American experiment in real-time.
Of course, the Clinton email scandal was determined to have no merit and dropped. But days before the election, Anthony Weiner got popped and, on his computer… more emails from Clinton. Comey felt it was his duty to announce he would investigate them—not exactly helping the New York Senator’s chances at winning the White House.
Meanwhile, while that episode of Comey’s tenure was getting all the headlines, the attack that intelligence officials were comparing to an online Pearl Harbor was vastly ignored by the public at large. This aspect of the former FBI director’s story is especially hard to watch as it is painstakingly recreated. And yes, it is difficult to witness knowing what happens with the benefit of hindsight.
Yet, knowing what the Russians and Trump are up to still doesn’t seem to matter to a 40 to 45-percent slice of the American pie.
Obama (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is keeping an eye on the situation, but doesn’t want to amplify it too much without fearing he’d look like he was being partisan—which he keenly felt it was not a president’s job to do, refreshing, no? Comey and national security experts like James Clapper (Jonathan Banks) were issuing warnings as best they could, but it’s hard to scream when no one seems to be listening.
The film is not so kind to Rod Rosenstein (Scoot McNairy) and Michael Flynn (William Sadler). The former was the Deputy Attorney General and the latter would be shown to be a friend of Putin’s and his government. There’s also that famous meeting in Trump Tower with Russians and Trump’s boys and a few folks who have since been indicted.
Through all of this, Trump still gets elected and then, The Comey Rule takes a more urgent tone as the very fabric of democracy is being torn apart.
It is meticulous how Comey decides to document his time with the president-elect and then POTUS. The entire relationship, he maintains, is not 100-percent ethical as the Justice Department and the White House/Executive Branch need to be at arm’s length. Despite that, he accepts a dinner at 1600 Pennsylvania. He is alarmed when he arrives and is the evening’s only guest. This is highly inappropriate. But what occurs, as documented in the miniseries, is highly unnerving for anyone in law enforcement. The president lets it be known that he expects loyalty. Period.
Daniels plays Comey like someone who is being pulled into a whirlpool and has all the principals in the world, but still manages to get sucked down the drain. He tries his best to distance himself from Trump, but the Chief Executive keeps putting him in compromising positions. He’s at the White House for a meeting with someone else, and Trump swoops in and has him brought to the Oval Office. It is there that he asks Comey about making this “whole Russia thing go away.” Yup, and there it is… something we all know about, but it still doesn’t cease to shock to hear it, to see it. It also has us thinking about the current Attorney General and the perverted role he sees the Justice Department playing after what we learn is firmly their role in The Comey Rule. It didn’t take a television movie/miniseries to make this clear. Basic U.S. Civics teaches us that the Justice Department must be kept from seen as meddling in the affairs of the nation at the behest of the president. Donald Trump does not see it that way and that comes through blaringly loud in the stellar two-part series.
The power that Daniels wields is immense. One can sense the weight that he is carrying throughout the Trump campaign and into the Trump White House. The pros and cons of each move he took was deliberate and all executed through the glasses of someone who reports having only the best interest of Americans and the FBI in the mind at all times.
He is sick about it. I’ll tell you that much. He never wanted to sway the 2016 election or fail to properly expose those responsible for colluding with the Russians in an attack that was as bad as the one on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001. It’s an invisible enemy, but one that is ruthless, and all this lands on the shoulders of the FBI helmer. Watching the actor bring him to life is a lesson in less is more. Comey is a calculating person, who documented every single thing that Trump said to him, so he could refer back to his notes later—something he was trained to do as a young agent. It is because of that fact that this case of He Said/He Said is one that is easy to discern where the truth lies and where the lies live.
Then, there’s a thud heard around the world. Brendan Gleeson does something extraordinary as Trump. The Irish actor does not do an imitation or a caricature but delves deep to capture what drives Donald J. Trump. Here’s a hint: It’s 100-percent his ego. That is not the worst quality to possess as the President of the United States. But when that is the only thing that gets you up in the morning and defines every single aspect of your being, then that is a problem. As Gleeson embodies the 45th president, he is blinded by his self-obsession, narcissism, and insane need to be the focus of every, well … everything. That is not a persona for someone who needs to not only show, but truly emit—from their core—empathy on numerous occasions. Trump doesn’t possess that personal attribute, even in his tiniest toe. Gleeson brings that trademark Trump empty gravitas and also adds a layer of someone who never admits their wrong or has failed in any capacity.
That right there lies the noose, one would think, that would hang him. Gleeson’s Trump is repeatedly told by Daniels’ Comey that it is in the best interest of the country and justice that they keep their encounters at arm’s length. It is a fascinating contrast, given that iconic video and subsequent photo of the president requesting that the FBI director walk over to him in a room full of press and White House staff. He famously took Comey’s hand in that typical Trump handshake. You know the one where Trump almost violently takes your hand and pulls you into his personal space. That’s not arm’s length by any definition, but as illustrated stunningly throughout the miniseries, the president doesn’t listen to suggestions that will better him as a leader and politician. Instead, he is driven by his gut. It is that instinct, so unnervingly documented in The Comey Rule, that would notoriously lead him to fire Comey and not even have the courtesy to talk to him in person. The titular soul discovered in Los Angeles while visiting a field office on CNN. There even was a debate on how Comey would return to Washington, D.C. The pettiness and smallness of POTUS shined through as he didn’t want him to be allowed to use government transport. He did anyway.
The ensemble is as remarkable as humanly possible. Standouts include Holly Hunter as Sally Yates, the Justice Department official who warned the incoming administration about Flynn and his being compromised by Russia. Yates served as the United States Deputy Attorney General under President Obama and would become Acting Attorney General while the transition of power was being completed. Trump would fire her too. Michael Kelly portrays the complicated challenges facing Andrew McCabe with the most understated power. McCabe served as the Deputy Director of the FBI and would ascend to be Director of the FBI after Comey was fired. He was beloved by those in the agency. The pettiness of POTUS could not be more impeccably embodied than by the tidbit that McCabe was fired 26 hours before he was set to retire will full benefits.
Ben-Adir’s Obama is sublime. The manner in which he depicts that highwire act that the 44th president had to perform in the days before that November 3 Election Day through Inauguration Day, two and a half months later, is a tough needle to thread of any actor. From knowledge of Russian meddling in our election to playing the role of educator-in-chief to an incoming president whose non-existent inquisitive nature speaks volumes, Ben-Adir straddles that line beautifully.
It’s easy to be swept up all of the headline-making moments that permeate this Showtime event. Something it does incredibly well is capture the personal pressure and familial stress that came with Comey’s choices and actions. He signed up for this position, but his family did not. Jennifer Ehle is touchingly potent as James’ wife, Patrice Comey, and embodies everything that clan had to endure throughout his tenure and subsequent firing.
Above all else, The Comey Rule paints a picture of a democracy on the brink of imploding. We are our own worst enemy. As a pandemic still ravages in the United States (and its leader never even mentions the grim milestone of passing 200,000 dead Americans), after fading across the planet, citizens are being asked to leave their shelter in place homes and risk literal death to vote. As the beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in state at the Supreme Court and Congress, her dying wish was that her replacement be appointed by whoever wins on November 3. Instead the president has shored up his Republican enablers in the Senate to ensure that he will fill that empty seat. The Comey Rule spotlights a leader who has dodged impeachment, a special counsel and we are reminded that he lost the popular vote by three million votes. Let’s say he loses on Election Day; this one-term president will have appointed one-third of the Court—who hold lifetime terms.
There is so much to digest throughout The Comey Rule. Long after the epic Showtime miniseries has concluded, blanks will be filled in by the viewers, i.e. the voters. Our hand is not held in director Billy Ray’s triumph. Facts are simply presented—all emanating from a man who relentlessly documented his time with 45—and by a film that mesmerizingly presents a case on infinitesimal levels that this individual is unfit to share the office that once was graced by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, FDR, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Now, it’s up to you. Who will inhabit that office on January 20, 2021? The Comey Rule makes that decision a no-brainer.
Grade: A+