06 June, 2017
The White House says President Donald Trump will not assert executive privilege to try to block testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey.
There had been speculation that Trump would use his executive privilege to block Comey's testimony, but the White House issued a statement on Monday saying this would not be the case.
Comey's dismissal was a shock to many in Washington - only one previous Federal Bureau of Investigation director had ever been fired - and it came a day before Trump welcomed senior Russian diplomats to a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office.
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Experts have said that James Comey's testimony on Thursday has the potential to be something of an natural disaster to the political landscape.
Comey is said to have documented that request and other interactions with Mr. Trump in a series contemporaneous memos.
Burr also told CNN that "former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn, a focus of the Russian Federation probe, had turned over some of the documents to the Senate intelligence committee in response to a subpoena they issued last month". On Monday, the White House made the announcement of the decision, both via a statement and an answer to the opening question of the daily White House Press Briefing. He later tweeted that Comey better hope there are no "tapes" of their conversations.
Asked at a news conference if he pressured Comey to drop the Flynn probe, Trump had said, "No. No".
"When I chose to just do it, I said to myself, I said: 'You know, this Russian Federation thing with Trump and Russian Federation is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won, '" Trump said in an interview with NBC News.
In this May 8, 2017, photo, then-FBI Director James Comey speaks to the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Summit in Washington.
Trump fired Comey last month, triggering a political firestorm.
