(Getty)
The time is drawing near for one of the most anticipated Senate hearings in recent memory.
Less than one month after he was fired by President Donald Trump as FBI director, James Comey will head to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.
It’s not the first time Comey will testify before the panel this year, but it’s the first time that he will speak and answer questions from members about numerous one-on-one meetings that he had with Trump prior to his dismissal.
The testimony is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday, and it will be followed by closed session in the afternoon.
It will be live streamed on virtually every news network (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News) and also on C-SPAN.
Comey Ready to Tell All
James Comey (Getty)
It’s Comey’s first appearance in public since he was fired by Trump last month for being unable to fulfill his duties as director, Trump said.
Part of the reason why Washington is buzzing about the testimony is because of a May 16 report by the New York Times that said Trump asked Comey to put the FBI’s investigation of former NSA Advisor Michael Flynn to an end.
The Times cited a memo that a source said Comey wrote, which has since been confirmed to exist.
Comey’s full testimony was released June 7, hours before he was set to take the stand before the Senate committee. In it, he described multiple one-on-one meetings, either in-person or via phone call, in which Trump spoke openly about an ongoing investigation into hi 2016 presidential campaign.
Click here to check out the full testimony that Comey wrote and is scheduled to read before Senate on Thursday.
One instance Comey wrote about in his testimony was on January 27, when Trump personally invited him to the White House’s Green Room for a dinner meeting.
Comey wrote that he figured that there would be other people at the dinner. However when he arrived, it was just Trump seated at a table in the room with just two Navy stewards entering the room to serve them food and drinks. At the dinner, Trump asked Comey for “honest loyalty” when serving as the agency’s head under him.
Read the full details of the January 27 dinner meeting, according to Comey, by clicking here.
Other meetings include Trump saying to Comey, “I hope you can let this go” in regard to the investigation surrounding Flynn. There were also various unwarranted personal phone calls that Trump had with Comey.
Trump made an unprecedented move when he fired Comey on May 9, at first saying he was acting on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein.
