Dear James Comey: Please Take Sean Hannity Up on His Offer to Go On His Show

Colby HallDec 10th, 2019, 6:26 am
 

After years of allegations of malfeasance, even treason, former FBI Director James Comey has been taking something of a victory lap since Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz largely exonerated him by finding no political bias in the opening of the Russian investigation.

The essence of Comey’s message is best expressed by what he said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday evening: “For two years the president of the United States accused our premier law enforcement agency of treason, of trying to defeat and stop him.” That was, in Comey’s telling, “all nonsense and all lies.”

“We have to pause and think about that because we need this institution. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you need the FBI, you need to see it clearly. And it human, it makes mistakes bit not engaged in treason or a coup or politically involved investigation,” Comey said. “That’s a lie.”

Comey has touted the results of the report on CNN, MSNBC, and in the pages of The Washington Post. There is one outlet, however, that has not yet featured a Comey interview since the report came out early Monday afternoon, and that just happens to be the one that has spoken about him the most over the past two-plus years: Fox News.

Comey sparked attention Monday when he revealed that he had reached out to Fox & Friends to discuss the findings of the Horowitz report, but ended up getting bumped from the show (A source at the network told me that the booking was never actually confirmed, so his public tweet likely did not endear Comey to executives at Fox News.) Nonetheless, it makes zero sense that Fox & Friends wouldn’t have Comey on a guest, given how monumental his role has been in this saga, which has been a huge story for the network.

Since then, Fox News anchors have reached out for a Comey for an interview, perhaps most appropriately newsman Bret Baier, who tweeted out an open invitation for the former FBI Director to come on his show. But there is another invitation that is a far more interesting one for Comey to consider. It came from prime time host (and Trump consigliere) Sean Hannity.

The four total hours of interview time offered across both radio and television is clearly hyperbole, and likely not something Comey would consider. But Hannity’s invitation to go on his top-rated primetime show, perhaps even for the entire hour, is absolutely a meaningful offer. And it’s one on which Comey should absolutely take him up.

There is no one that has played a more central role in promoting the narrative that Comey on Monday dismissed as “nonsense and lies” as Sean Hannity. By all standards of reason, Comey is well within his rights to tell Hannity, and the rest of Fox News opinion programming, to go pound sand. But I believe that would be a big mistake. Comey likely agrees with me here, given that he reached out to Fox & Friends for an interview in order to make his case.

“I can’t change their viewers on Donald Trump but hoped to give them some actual facts about the FBI,” Comey said.

I think the best thing that Comey could do is go on Hannity’s show and confront his biggest critic. Here are the reasons why.

Here’s a thing that people don’t necessarily get about Sean Hannity. He talks a really big game when his target isn’t in the room. Part of that is the false bravado brought about by the insular world to television studios, but a lot of it is Hannity enjoying the gamesmanship and pro-wrestling nature that comes with cable news. Without a clear villain, you can’t paint yourself as a mythical hero. And that’s not just a bug, that’s a feature of almost all cable news programming of all political stripes. Hannity is just super aggressive about that.

In person, however, Hannity is a polite, charming and remarkably affable guy. And if he is hosting a guest in his own studio — even it is the super-villainous Deep State leader James Comey — Sean Hannity would almost certainly honor Comey’s on-set presence with the sot of mutual respect any professional television host commands.

How do we know this? Well, we don’t, but Hannity’s recent interview with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio from a few months ago demonstrated this very phenomenon. No one railed harder on de Blasio than Hannity, but once the former Democratic presidential hopeful joined him for a multiple segment interview, the dynamic was remarkably different.

So while Comey has caught endless and (depending in what shows you watch) unfair hell from Sean Hannity over the past two-plus years, it’s reasonable to expect Hannity to host his guest in a manner quite different than the mien he’s taken without Comey in-studio sitting next to him.

More importantly, it is difficult to imagine more polar opposites in this current giant political divide the nation is currently enduring than these two figures. Hannity is very close to President Trump and an enormous promoter of the “Deep State” lifetime bureaucrats that have gone out of their way to take down the beltway Disrupter-in-chief. And on the other hand, Comey is the lifelong civil servant who firmly believes in the apolitical nature law enforcement leadership all the way to the top of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The two men both have very different rhetorical approaches — Hannity is a media-trained professional who knows all the tricks to trap and ambush his guests, and Comey is a dispassionate and impressive legal mind who can calmly handle even the trickiest cable news sophistry. So at the very least, it would be wildly compelling television.

But there is something bigger at play than just the entertainment value of a Comey vs. Hannity heavyweight fight.

Because they represent both sides of a fiercely divisive debate, if they can come to some agreement, or at least discuss their differences in a meaningful and respectful way, there is a chance it could be the transcendent political media moment that the nation is so sorely thirsting for.

On the rare occasions he interviews an opponent, Hannity is a fair interlocutor. And Comey, who is extremely well versed in the details of what Hannity has been peddling to his audience for the past 3 years, should feel confident that he can make the case that the FBI acted without bias, a conclusion even Horowitz arrived at.

With the facts on his side, Comey should see an hourlong bout with Hannity as the perfect venue to fight back against theories about him and the FBI that have flourished for years in pro-Trump media, and get at least an inch closer to convincing Hannity’s 3 million-strong audience — including the president — that maybe they were wrong about the Russia investigation’s origins after all.

That may be an idealistic outcome, but if you’re going to make your case anywhere, a five-minute segment on Fox & Friends is unlikely to satisfy. Hannity’s hourlong show is it.

It would be great television and possibly even a transcendent moment, that can only happen if James Comey goes on Hannity.

So, Director Comey? The choice is yours.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.