As given in a prepared remarks already delivered to the committee

Former FBI Director James Comey will tell the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that President Donald Trump asked him for his loyalty during a dinner in January and requested in an Oval Office meeting in February that he drop the FBI's investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"The president began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to," Comey said in his prepared remarks, which the committee published Wednesday.

"My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship," the remarks say. "That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch."

Comey, whom Trump fired on May 9, wrote in the remarks that he told Trump he loved his work and "intended to stay and serve out my 10-year term as director. ... I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the president.

"A few moments later, the president said, 'I need loyalty. I expect loyalty,'" Comey continued. "I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner."

Comey will also tell Congress about his conversation with Trump during an Oval Office meeting on February 14 in which Trump told him he wanted to talk about Flynn.

"Flynn had resigned the previous day," Comey's remarks say. "The president began by saying Flynn hadn't done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the vice president. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify."

"'[Flynn] is a good guy and has been through a lot,'" Comey recalls Trump as saying. "He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the vice president. He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.'"

Comey's prepared remarks say he told Trump that he agreed Flynn was "a good guy," but that he did not tell the president that he would drop the investigation. He did, however, reassure Trump that he was not the direct subject of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation.

Still, according to Comey's prepared testimony, Trump called him at least twice more, on March 30 and April 11, to discuss the Russia investigation.

"On the morning of March 30, the president called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country," Comey's remarks say. "He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia."

Comey, along with the director of the National Security Agency, Mike Rogers, had testified the week before that the FBI was investigating whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the election.

"I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well," Comey's remarks say. "He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him."

On April 11, Trump called Comey again, according to the prepared testimony, to ask what the FBI director had done to tell the public that Trump himself was not under investigation.

"I replied that I had passed his request to the acting deputy attorney general, but I had not heard back," Comey's remarks say. "He replied that 'the cloud' was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the acting deputy attorney general. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel."

The final straw leading Trump to fire Comey appears to have been the president's  "white hot" anger  after Comey confirmed in an open — and televised — hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI was still investigating whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia.

Comey had not allowed the White House to preview that testimony, which Trump and his aides considered "an act of insubordination," according to Reuters. The New York Times echoed that report, saying Trump was broadly irked by his inability to gain assurances of loyalty from Comey.

Comey will testify one day after the Senate Intelligence Committee grilled top intelligence officials about the circumstances surrounding his firing.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner told the officials — National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats — that it was "jarring" to hear "recent reports of White House officials, perhaps even the president himself, attempting to influence and enlist our intelligence-community leaders in attempting to undermine an ongoing FBI investigation."

You can read the full thing for yourself here.

Reports are that Comey will not go as far as to say that Trump obstructed justice, though it sounds like he's doing everything but that.

Quote from: Alternative Facts on June 07, 2017, 02:05:39 PM

Reports are that Comey will not go as far as to say that Trump obstructed justice, though it sounds like he's doing everything but that.

He seems to really like walking that line, huh?

I think it's reasonable - were he to do so, I think even more people would be calling him "a bitter ex-employee" or things along those lines. What it sounds like he's doing is confirming news reports from last month and offering his views for Congressional panels, while still respecting the ongoing FBI investigation that he knows is well underway.

Putting it all on the table without cornering anyone into a specific charge.