Comey Hopes ‘Inside the FBI’ TV Series Will Restore Americans’ Faith in Bureau

ComeyInsideTheFBINewYork
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FBI Director James Comey hopes an upcoming documentary television series about the agency will help Americans get to know its inner workings and restore “faith and confidence” in the institution.

Speaking during a screening of the new series Inside the FBI: New York at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Comey said Americans had become “confused” by the bureau’s actions over the past year, particularly during the 2016 presidential election.

“We did a lot last year that confused people, because they’re seeing the world…through sides,” Comey said at the event, according to ABC News. “We don’t see the world that way. We are not on anybody’s side. We really don’t care. We’re trying to figure out what’s true, what’s fair, that’s the right thing to do.”

Inside the FBI: New York hails from Law & Order legend Dick Wolf and is set to premiere later this month on USA Network.

The series provides an in-depth look at the agency’s offices in New York City, where director Marc Levin and his team spent a year between September 2015 and September 2016 filming the day-to-day activities of field agents and the bureau’s response to a number of terrorist attacks and national crises.

Executive producer Wolf promises a “never-before-seen look at the lives and work of the FBI agents who keep Americans safe.”

At the Newseum on Wednesday, Comey — who came under intense fire during the campaign for his announcements of investigations and non-investigations into Hillary Clinton’s private email server — said that Americans’ trust in the FBI is the “bedrock” that allows it to continue to do its job. In March, Comey said the agency was investigating alleged connections between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government.

“I worry sometimes that people don’t know us,” Comey said, according to ABC. “We have to care what people think of us because the faith and confidence of the American people is the bedrock that allows us to be believed, and by being believed, to accomplish the good that they try to do in this country.”

“We want to find as many different things as possible to show people what we’re really like,” he added. “And especially in a hyper partisan country, which is what we are right now, to understand we are not on anybody’s side.”

Inside the FBI: New York is set to premiere April 27th on USA.

 

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

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