Trump-Comey clash coming to U.S. television - after November election
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The clash between former FBI director James Comey and U.S. President Donald Trump over Russian interference in the 2016 elections is coming to television, but the drama series will be aired after Americans vote in November.
Cable network Showtime said on Tuesday that "The Comey Rule," described as "an immersive, behind-the-headlines account of the historically turbulent events surrounding the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath," would be broadcast in late November.
Trump is running for a second term in the White House in a Nov. 3 election. Showtime had no comment on the timing of the broadcast.
The two-part TV series, starring Jeff Daniels as Comey and Irish actor Brendan Gleeson as Trump, is based on Comey's best-selling book "A Higher Loyalty" and more than a year of additional interviews, Showtime said.
The network said "The Comey Rule" was not a biopic but "the story of two powerful figures, Comey and Trump, whose strikingly different personalities, ethics and loyalties put them on a collision course."
Comey's firing by Trump in 2017 triggered a 22-month long investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russian election interference in 2016. Mueller documented numerous contacts between Trump campaign figures and Moscow but found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
Part one of the TV series will focus on the earliest days of the Russia probe and the FBI's investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails. Part two is a virtual day-by-day account of the relationship between Comey and Trump and the first months of the Trump presidency, Showtime said.
Many other key players in the investigation will be featured in the series, including former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates (played by Holly Hunter), former FBI director Andrew McCabe (Michael Kelly), and former President Barack Obama (Kinsgley Ben-Adir).
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
