Comey testifies on Capitol Hill

FORMER FBI Director James Comey  tells US lawmakers at a hearing that began on Thursday that President Donald Trump repeatedly urged him to halt a probe into his former national security adviser’s ties to Russia and to declare publicly that Trump himself was not being investigated.

Comey  addressed the Senate Intelligence Committee in one of the most widely anticipated US congressional hearing in years. Photographers crowded around Comey as he took his seat at the witness table alone at the start of the hearing in a room on Capitol Hill.

Trump  watched the hearing with his outside counsel Marc Kasowitz and other advisers in a dining room in the White House, a source familiar with the plan said.

The outcome would have significant repercussions for Trump’s presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees investigate alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump’s campaign colluded with this. Russia has denied such interference and the White House has denied any collusion.

The issue has dogged Trump’s first five months in office, with critics saying that any efforts by him to hinder the FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice. Comey will be making his first public appearance since Trump fired him on May 9, triggering a political firestorm.

The Senate panel released Comey’s written testimony on Wednesday, shifting the drama on Thursday to the question and answer period of the hearing.

In his written testimony, Comey quoted Trump as telling him the Russia investigation was a “cloud” impairing his ability to operate as president.

In a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb. 14, Comey’s statement said, Trump asked him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, part of a wider probe into Russian meddling in the election.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump as saying.

The Senate panel’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, will say in his opening statement that Comey’s testimony showed Trump violated guidelines put in place after the 1970s Watergate scandal to prevent White House interference in FBI investigations.

“I do want to emphasize what is happening here – the president of the United States is asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation into the president’s former national security adviser,” Warner said in excerpts provided to Reuters on Thursday.

After Trump fired Comey, Democrats accused the Republican president of seeking to hinder the Russia probes. Democrats and some Republicans on the committee will use Thursday’s hearing to press for further details of any attempts by Trump to blunt the Russia investigation.

Senator Angus King, an independent who votes with Democrats, told CNN he expected many questions would relate to Comey’s firing and the conversations that preceded it.

In a detailed account of a series of conversations with Trump, Comey said Trump told him during a one-on-one dinner on Jan. 27 that he needed “loyalty.”

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said on Wednesday he was very concerned about the loyalty comments, adding, “That is another way the president sought to impede the investigation.”

Republican Senator Richard Burr, the panel’s chairman, sought to play down the remark, saying: “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration.”

The hearing was expected to be widely watched, with bars in the capital offering “impeachmint” cocktails and $5 Russian vodka shots during the live broadcast.

A line of people snaked through the hallway outside the hearing room waiting to get in, including some Capitol Hill interns who told reporters they were there shortly after 4 a.m.

Trump’s attorney Kasowitz released a statement on Wednesday saying the president felt vindicated by Comey’s acknowledgement in his written testimony that Trump was not personally under investigation.

Although he has been involved in other political controversies, most notably his handling of the FBI investigation into 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Comey is widely seen as cautious and fact-oriented.