'The Comey Rule': What Have Comey and Trump Said About Each Other?

The Comey Rule on Showtime garnered a lot of headlines when it teased actor Brendan Gleeson's take of President Donald Trump, but he did not appear until right of the end of the first episode. The second episode, however, focuses on the relationship between FBI director James Comey (Jeff Daniels) and Trump from the President's inauguration until the firing of Comey in May 2017.

Though in The Comey Rule their relationship begins fairly positively and then sours, only negative accounts of Comey remain on the President's Twitter account. His first mention to Comey is on October 18, 2016, before Trump was elected as President, when Trump tweeted an article from right-wing news site The Daily Caller titled, "FBI Agents Say Comey 'Stood In The Way' Of Clinton Email Investigation."

His post-inauguration tweets about Comey, meanwhile, are wholly negative. On May 3, Trump tweeted, "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony..."

Then, the day after Comey was dismissed, Trump wrote six tweets about his now former FBI director. Four of these were about Democratic reactions to the dismissal, and two were directed at Comey. One said: "James Comey will be replaced by someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI." The other, meanwhile, saw the President tweet: "Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. When things calm down, they will be thanking me!"

The day after Comey's book A Higher Loyalty was released, meanwhile, Trump tweeted: "Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!"

In A Higher Loyalty, which The Comey Rule is based on, Comey has some fairly damning things to say himself about the President. He says of Trump's tenure, "this President is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty."

In another section, he compares Trump's leadership style to a mob boss, something which is pointed out a number of times in The Comey Rule. Comey speaks of Trump's, "the silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth."

In another section, Comey says that during a dinner together Trump began denying the various assault allegations against him unprompted by Comey, and how he seemed obsessed by what Comey says Trump called the "golden showers thing."

Comey also could not resist a few references to Trump's appearance in the book, he mentions the "the soft white pouches under his expressionless blue eyes," also calling his face, "slightly orange with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles."

He also sets to contradict two rumors about Trump's appearance: That his hair is fake and his hands are small. He describes the former as, "impressively coifed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his," and said of the latter, "As he extended his hand, I made a mental note to check its size. It was smaller than mine, but did not seem unusually so."

The Comey Rule concludes on Monday, September 28 at 9 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CT on Showtime.