Comey testimony as it happened: Trump's lawyer hits back at fired FBI director and says he could be investigated
The Independent will be covering his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee live
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Your support makes all the difference.Former FBI Director James Comey is due to give evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee about conversations he had with President Donald Trump and whether the former businessman pressured him to drop an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
The committee has already released his prepared opening statement in which he will confirm under oath that Mr Trump tried to get him to drop the probe into whether General Flynn, who was forced to resign two weeks after the inauguration, had met with Russian officials during the campaign to discuss economic sanctions imposed by Barack Obama.
He will also testify about a pair of phone calls with Mr Trump where he had reportedly complained to him about the FBI's investigation into his campaign team's links with Russia, calling it a "cloud" looming over the presidency and reportedly urged mr comey to state publicly that the President himself was not under investigation.
Follow our liveblog below the video:
“The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that ‘I hope that there’s not tapes,” Mr Comey said. Then Mr Comey woke up in the middle of the night on Monday and realised it was important to get his own version out.
Democratic sentor Martin Heinrich: “A lot of this comes down to who should we believe.”
Mr Comey: “I think people should look at the whole body of my testimony.”
Why would you kick everyone out of the Oval Office to talk to me, Mr Comey adds. As an investigator, that’s a very significant fact.
Talking about the memo and leaking it through a friend, Mr Comey says he believed his note from the Flynn conversation with Mr Trump, was "my recollection recorded" and not classified, so he wanted the information out in the public domain
Mr Comey says the reason he sent the memo out through a friend was that the media were camping "at teh end of his driveway by that point" and handing it out would be like "feeding seagulls at the beach".
Mr Comey says he had to break a date with his wife to have dinner with Mr Trump.
He adds that he never initiated communication with the President.
Mr Comey refuses to answer a question in open session about whether Mr Flynn "was and is central to the investigation" into potential ties between the trump administration and Russia.
Outside of the hearing - House Speaker Paul Ryan is showing his disdain as he tweets about his daily press conference that is going on now.
CNN are reporting that Mr trump's lawyer will be giving a press conference after the hearing:
As for the dinner, Mr Trump told NBC News: “He [Comey] wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on.” Is that accurate
When asked if that is accurate, Mr Comey says "no sir".
In terms of the major point of the Senate investigation - Russian meddling in the presidential election - Mr Comey says "they will be back."
The election meddling has been a little lost amid the rest of the Trump accusations...
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