Top revelations of the Comey hearing

Trump said on Twitter.

"No collusion. No obstruction".

He further denied ever asking Comey for his "loyalty", contradicting Comey's detailed allegations in his sworn testimony.

"No I didn't say that", Trump stated abruptly, taking questions after meeting Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. Trump played coy again on that critical point Friday, teasing to a reporter that he would let the answer be known "in the very near future", though, he added, "You'll be very disappointed".

"I am not hinting at anything". "This reminds me of the taping system...that Richard Nixon had - you remember that issue went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the president was ordered to turn over the tapes".

During a hearing that focused on meetings between Comey and Trump, several participants took time to talk about exactly what Russian Federation did and the dangers in those actions.

Shortly after he fired Comey in May, Trump tweeted "James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" It's something that attacks the foundation of American democracy, something which in overall threat to the United States, certainly transcends partisanship and perhaps even any single presidency.

On February 14, following a counter-terrorism briefing in the Oval Office with top officials and aides, including Attorney General Jefferson Sessions and Vice President Michael Pence, Trump asked everybody except Comey to leave the room.

During nearly three hours of statements Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey described himself as "stunned" by Trump's "very disturbing" and "very concerning" behavior in several of their meetings. Trump wrote at 6:10 a.m.

Trump also retweeted a comment from attorney Alan Dershowitz, who had written: "We should stop talking about obstruction of justice". We are not speaking of common political evasions often practiced by politicians but of a constant stream of half-truths, hyperbole, and falsehoods.

"I think the last 24, 48 hours were all good for the president, confirmed he was telling the truth all along, that he wasn't under investigation", GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of OH said Friday, referring to Comey's confirmation that he had informed Trump that the president wasn't being personally investigated.

But the self-imposed silence didn't last.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an Federal Bureau of Investigation director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the Federal Bureau of Investigation by saying that the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader", he charged. Just prior to Comey's testimony, in an interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly, Putin demonstrated how a former KGB operative can dispense total falsehoods without moving a facial muscle. Anyone involved in the firing of Comey - which Trump admitted in an NBC News interview was motivated, at least in part, by the Russian Federation investigation.

Comey testified, "The FBI and the Justice Department had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change".

Comey was compelling, with his awkward-romance-novel memos describing his interactions with Donald Trump, but Democrats shouldn't rejoice yet about impeaching the president for obstructing justice on Michael Flynn.

While Trump's staunchest supporters have tried to paint Comey's testimony as vindication for the president, few Republicans who don't work for Trump stepped in to defend the president's version of his contacts with Comey. She called Comey an "honorable individual". But as Rubio pointed out, they were surely aware via the media that Trump wanted the inquiry into whether Flynn lied to government officials about his Russian Federation contacts to go away. "They know he rules with an iron fist, punches back and know there is some political fallout from that", said GOP strategist Leslie Sanchez.