Comey to Congress: President Trump Told Him "I Need Loyalty"

Former FBI Director James Comey's much-anticipated testimony Thursday could both help and hurt President Donald Trump's bid to remove the cloud over his presidency created by multiple probes into Russia's meddling in last year's election.

Two of the four national security executives scheduled to testify before the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday were reportedly asked by Trump to publicly state that there was no evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Comey's testimony will be his first public comments since Trump abruptly fired him on May 9.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go". But Democrats weren't reluctant to say they were troubled by what they had heard.

Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee will address the investigation into allegations that the Russians interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

Trump fired Comey last month.

Congressional Republicans seized on Comey's remarks that he three times told Trump he personally wasn't under investigation.

According to Comey, Trump asked if he wanted to remain as Federal Bureau of Investigation director and declared: "I need loyalty". He said the President responded, "that's what I want".

"On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation".

Comey wrote: "The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone".

His prepared statement was released on Wednesday afternoon. Why was the president still referring to the infamous dossier months after it had dropped?

Four top intelligence officials are fielding questions Wednesday on whether Trump intervened into the Justice Department's investigation into Russian interference in the United States elections, the latest development in a tumultuous 24 hours.

"He is eager to move forward with his agenda", he said. Their first meeting occurred in Trump Tower on January 6 during a briefing with leaders of the intelligence community.

"So, I don't know whether we're going to be any smarter when it's said and done" other than hearing it directly from Comey rather than reading a memo leaked by the former director's friends, Grassley said.

Two of them - Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers - gave blanket assertions that they had not felt pressure to back off investigations, but they would not discuss detailed media reports of specific meetings or calls with Trump that indicated otherwise.

The president began the conversation, Comey wrote, by asking him if he wanted to stay on as FBI Director, "which I found odd because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I meant to". Comey urged Trump to have the White House Counsel "contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel".

"I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December", Comey said in prepared testimony ahead of Thursday's hearing in the Senate.

"What we don't seem to have is the same commitment to find out whether the president of the United States tried to intervene with members of the Intelligence Community and asked them to back off or downplay (the Russian Federation investigation)", Warner told the witnesses. The president told him "the cloud" of the probe was interfering with his ability to do his job.

There's only one way to resolve that, Grassley said, and he doesn't think that's likely.

Read Comey's full opening statement, here. "Did his refusal to do either cost him his job?"