At first, the White House cited a harsh memo about Comey's performance from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the justification, though Trump later said he would have fired Comey regardless of what the Justice Department recommended. Whether a sitting president can be prosecuted is an open legal question that has never been decided by the Supreme Court.
"We will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever", Trump said.
But the sources said it is possible the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, was exaggerating the extent of the encounter. Flynn was sacked earlier this year over reportedly lying to the administration about the meeting.
At one point, Comey said, "I've seen the tweet about tapes. He's a good guy".
During more than two hours of testimony, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he believed Trump had directed him to drop an FBI probe into the Republican president's former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the broader Russian Federation investigation.
Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said Comey's testimony proved the president was not under any investigation and there is no evidence a single vote was changed as a result of Russian interference in last year's election.
Comey admitted that he didn't feel the need to take notes following conversations with former Presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush.
Pakistan accuses India of 'devious games' in Afghanistan
"It is involved in deteriorating Pak-Afghan relations whereas it is also using Afghanistan's soil against Pakistan". Pakistan said that India has curbed freedom of expression.
Comey also told the Senate Intelligence Committee he was "troubled" when his boss, Lynch, asked him to refer to the probe of Hillary Clinton's secret email server a "matter" and not an "investigation".
After Trump fired Comey, the administration gave differing reasons for his dismissal. Comey said he felt compelled to do so after an airport tarmac meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport previous year.
In early January, before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, took a brief turn as the highest profile GOP critic of Trump's emerging foreign policy.
"I love spending time with my wife and I wish I would have been there that night" instead of the White House, he said. "The idea not just that he initiated the leaks on the memos but that he did so for purposes of triggering a special prosecutor, I thought was perhaps, the most explosive portion of the hearing", Rubio said. "I was quite frankly impressed by his honesty".
"It's a piece of history and I wanted to be here for it", said one congressional staffer, who had been waiting since before dawn to witness a political theater unseen in decades on Capitol Hill.
The president's abrupt firing of Comey on May 9 - and the White House's bungled handling of the controversial move - has intensified questions about Trump's credibility.
Trump surprised Washington on Wednesday with announcing his choice to replace Comey, saying in a tweet that he meant to nominate Christopher Wray, a high-ranking official in George W. Bush's Justice Department who represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Bridgegate scandal. And then what was fascinating, Comey basically said that Flynn wasn't central to the Russian Federation investigation, that he was touching on it.
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