Never Forget

Despite right wing media attempts to brainwash the public, Trump was, and is almost certainly a Russian asset.

by Ben Cohen

In an act of supreme self-loathing, I have been watching the Showtime drama ‘The Comey Rule’. The series is about FBI director James Comey and is based on his book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership. Starring the inimitable Jeff Daniels, it is an excellent show with top notch acting and a fantastic cast. It does however, force you to relive the early Trump years — an experience I have been trying to recover from since Joe Biden’s election in 2020.

While suffering a little from too clever by half Sorkinite dialogue and an overly effusive portrayal of the FBI, the series does an excellent job depicting the drama around Comey and the Hillary Clinton email saga. The series is sympathetic towards Comey and sheds light on the thinking that went on behind his decision to re-open the investigation 11 days before the election in 2016.

I still think the decision was a bad one, but the series supports Comey’s deeply held belief that he was acting out of the long term interests of the FBI. The agency, according to Comey, had to act on new intel on the Clinton email saga and was obliged to inform the public about it regardless of the timing. Comey understood it could throw the election to Trump, but took the long term view that the agency’s independence was more important than a single election.

This, in my view, was a deeply flawed perspective given Comey and the agency knew what a Trump presidency would entail.

The emergence of Donald Trump in the final two episodes of the series is what drives home this point. Played by the fantastic Brendan Gleeson, the series pivots from the Clinton drama to Trump’s first term in office — and boy is it scary.