The line to get in this morning stretched blocks.
Watch for a battle between Democrats and Republicans over how to characterize Trump's request of Comey - as well as Trump's other requests, like his repeatedly asking Comey for his loyalty.
January 6: FBI Director James Comey briefs President-elect Trump on the Intelligence Community brief concerning Russian interference in the USA election. But what Comey can not speak to is how the case has progressed since he left the FBI director's post last month, or what special counselor Robert Mueller is looking into, now that he has been tasked with overseeing the investigation since Comey was sacked.
Forget yesterday's news. Get what you need today in this early-morning email.
On Thursday, Comey testifies before the committee. They think it's Trump's word against Comey's.
But Comey would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice but did say that Flynn was "in legal jeopardy" with the FBI investigation.
The key moment when this could have happened was an Oval Office meeting with Trump. Kasowitz added that "we will leave it the appropriate authorities" to determine whether Comey's leak "should be investigated along with all those others being investigated". However, the rising Democratic star is the only member of the panel who has experience as a prosecutor, making her uniquely qualified to question Comey. The former director immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau's Russian Federation investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday.
On March 20, he revealed publicly that the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign since last July - in a House hearing which prefaced the House investigation nearly spiraling out of control. But of course he didn't drop the investigation.
Given that the first article of impeachment written up on Richard Nixon was about obstruction of justice, the intricacies of this point matter.
That's certainly true for many Trump voters, who have so far been rewarded with chimerical factory jobs and a make-believe revival of coal mining.
He already uncorked a few big surprises in his testimony - be on the lookout for more Thursday. Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr).
Comey's testimony in the most widely anticipated congressional hearing in years will put at center stage a high-stakes clash between two men with vastly different personas.
In a startling disclosure, Comey revealed that after his firing he actually tried to spur the special counsel's appointment by giving one of his memos about Trump to a friend of his to release to the press.
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The White House said Monday it would not invoke executive privilege over Comey's upcoming testimony - officials predicted it would look bad otherwise.
Comey described several one-on-one conversations with Trump.
During his testimony on Wednesday Comey said that in fact he hopes there are tapes.
'I've seen the tweet about tapes.
'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.
"I interacted with president Obama".
The reason he documented all nine meetings with Trump? A common, underlying force-reality-is pulling them together and isolating Trump.
Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz highlighted Comey's statements in the testimony that he had told Trump twice and congressional leaders once that the President was not a target of the FBI's Russian Federation investigation.
His comments, which confirmed the details of a number of press reports about his interactions with Trump published in recent weeks, came ahead of his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Some legal experts said Comey's account could bolster such a case.
In his statement, Comey wrote about a February 14 meeting alone with the president in the Oval Office in which Trump allegedly told Comey he wanted to talk about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who had resigned the day before.
Comey said it was based on the circumstances of the moment (he was alone with the then-president elect), the subject matter of that first conversation (touched on Federal Bureau of Investigation responsibilities, as well as issues related to Trump himself), and "nature of the person" he was dealing with. He continued, saying that he had a message for the American people: "The FBI is honest, the FBI is strong, and the FBI is, and always will be, independent".
Democrats, along with some Republicans, on the committee will use the hearing on Thursday to press for further details of any attempts by Trump to blunt the Russian Federation investigation.
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