Donald Trump Ripped Anew By James Comey On RNC Night 1; Ex-FBI Boss On Cable News As Showtime’s ‘Comey Rule’ Debuts Next Month
It is more than a month until The Comey Rule limited series premieres on Showtime, but the still-raging drama between Donald Trump and fired FBI director James Comey was live Monday on cable news during Night 1 of the Republican National Convention.
“If you put it in a script, I’m sure it would get rejected for not being realistic enough, that the chairman of the president’s campaign is working with a Russian intelligence officer,” Comey told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow of the damning report released last week by the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The report examined contacts between Russian sources and the Trump campaign.
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“You are going to want to explain to your grandchildren someday how you stood with respect to that oath,” Comey added to the MSNBC hosts about law enforcement participating in possible voter suppression. “Did you abide it or did you do what Donald Trump wanted you to do so he could engineer his reelection?”
As the semi-virtual Trumpathon prepared to kick off Monday, Comey’s appearance came as a convention of never-Trump Republicans — the Convention on Founding Principles — began as an alternative to the GOP gathering, with the A Higher Loyalty author center stage. “I’m speaking out now, because I think, not to overstate it because I don’t think you can overstate it, what in America is at stake here,” Comey said on an online roundtable with ex-Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele at the virtual event. Fired by Trump in May 2017, Comey also will be speaking at the event on Tuesday.
In the MSNBC interview today, Comey told Wallace that he was “more worried” about Russian meddling in the 2020 election compared to 2016.
“Both because we have a clearer picture of how deep and wide the Russian tentacles were in the Trump campaign,” he said. “And second, we’ve seen over four years that the president won’t acknowledge the threat, so how can our government possibly stop Putin from getting in to this election if the commander-in-chief doesn’t acknowledge it exists? So, the cumulation of facts and the experience of watching this president, deepens my worry.”
If the latest trailer made public on August 24 is any indication, the two-part Comey Rule may deeply worry Trump.
Airing on September 27-28 on the ViacomCBS-owned premium cabler, the Billy Ray-penned and -directed limited series peels back the BTS Beltway battle. In short, Jeff Daniels’ Comey works to stop Trump, played by Brendan Gleeson, from blunting probes into his campaign and the connections and moves by Russian president Vladimir Putin against Hillary Clinton.
In June, The Comey Rule was scheduled to air after the November 3 election pitting Trump against ex-VP Joe Biden. However after Ray went public with his displeasure, ViacomCBS shifted the limited series debut to ahead of the ballot-box showdown.
Based on his memoir, The Comey Rule is likely to elevate, once again, the issues surrounding the 2016 election and Comey’s role in it.
“There’s no Deep State in this country, but there is deep deep character in these people and they are going to risk everything because they love their country,” Comey said on MSNBC about the much-attacked FBI and its officials.
“That’s very sobering discussion,” Maddow declared at the end to very nervous laughter from Reid and Wallace.
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