A new Showtime miniseries, The Comey Rule, might be considered by some to be an in-kind contribution to the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
After all, it presents a distorted depiction of former FBI Director James Comey’s memoir, A Higher Loyalty.
That project, which premiered on Sept. 27, just weeks before the presidential election, is self-described as explicitly hoping to influence voter behavior.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, star Jeff Daniels, who plays Comey, said he would have never taken the role if it was going to be released after the election.
“Everyone I worked with would’ve passed,” Daniels said when explaining that its release was key to working on the television show. “And it’s not like, ‘Let’s get Trump.’ It’s, ‘Let’s be part of the conversation, let’s matter.’ So that people who are out there voting, in particular, the ones in the middle, if they exist, might see this and go, ‘Now wait a minute.'”
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, Democrats in Hollywood don’t have to sweat about whether releases like The Comey Rule run afoul of federal election law. Although the ruling’s legacy is best seen in the proliferation of super PACs and “dark money,” the original case was litigated after the federal government barred the release of a film critical of Hillary Clinton that was produced by the conservative nonprofit group Citizens United.
Under existing law at the time of the ruling, the film violated restrictions on “electioneering communication” within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the law’s power to limit “independent political spending” from corporations, such as Citizens United, or unions as violating the First Amendment. The result: Corporations could spend an unlimited amount of money on campaign media, and Hollywood studios could release films critical of one candidate or political party.
So The Comey Rule, with its critical depiction of President Trump’s conduct and inferences that members of his campaign had engaged in criminal behavior, will escape all scrutiny from federal regulators, despite the fact that overturning Citizens United has long been a rallying cry for the Democratic Party.
Of course, politically charged releases right before an election are nothing new from Hollywood. In 2004, left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 9/11, which attacked President George W. Bush’s administration on its handling of the invasion of Iraq, and its overall post-Sept. 11 response.
During the last election cycle, Universal Pictures released The Purge: Election Year, which lampoons jingoistic supporters of a government policy that allows a day of lawlessness, and a U.S. senator and female presidential candidate hellbent on stopping it. That year also saw the release of Independence Day: Resurgence, featuring a female president tasked with fighting off an alien invasion.
Directors such as Steven Spielberg, however, have taken an opposite approach to some of their films. In 2012, the director said he delayed the release of his film Lincoln until after the presidential election due to its depictions of pro-slavery Democrats.
“From the beginning, Steven Spielberg was determined to steer his Abraham Lincoln movie clear of contemporary politics. He specifically requested a post Election Day release date so as not to be engulfed in the push and pull of the heated presidential race,” Entertainment Weekly wrote at the time. “Make no mistake, the Democrats in Lincoln are anything but heroic, and that’s an inconvenient truth for Spielberg, a strong supporter for Barack Obama and Democratic causes.”
