06 June, 2017
But White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of facts, Trump would not try to halt the Comey testimony. Comey, ousted last month amid a federal investigation into connections between Russian Federation and the Trump campaign, .
A few weeks later, the day after Mr Trump pushed out Michael Flynn, his national security adviser, who had provided misleading accounts of a phone call with Russia's ambassador, the president asked Mr Comey to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn, according to notes taken contemporaneously by Mr Comey.
While Mr Trump and his aides initially said he acted at the recommendation of the deputy attorney general because of the way Mr Comey handled last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, Mr Trump later said he had already chose to fire the FBI director regardless of any recommendations and that he had the Russian Federation investigation in mind.
Following Comey's departure, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel in the ongoing investigation.
Both Trump's fellow Republicans and Democrats from the intelligence panel said they meant to grill Comey about whether Trump tried to get him to back off the investigation.
Several White House officials, including Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and press secretary Sean Spicer, suggested that the administration might invoke executive privilege to prevent Comey from testifying, as recently as Monday morning.
President Donald Trump waves as he departs an Air Traffic Control Reform Initiative event in the East Room at the White House, Monday, June 5, 2017, in Washington.
Legal scholars said they believe Trump's case for executive privilege was weakened because the president has already talked and tweeted about his conversations with Comey.
Comey's highly anticipated testimony will be the first time he has made public comments since being terminated as director last month.
He reportedly has met with Comey to discuss the probe, and Comey reportedly sought his approval to testify before lawmakers.
The White House has rebuffed questions about whether Trump was suggesting he had recorded his discussions with the former Federal Bureau of Investigation chief.
