Former FBI Director James Comey has agreed to publicly testify before the Senate intelligence committee. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, and the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner announced the news on Friday.
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BREAKING: Former FBI Director James Comey to testify in open session before Senate intelligence committee.
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 19, 2017
A date has not yet been set for the hearing, but Burr and Warner have said they will schedule it for after Memorial Day weekend.
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“The committee looks forward to receiving testimony from the former director on his role in the development of the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, and I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” Burr said in a statement.
Warner added that Comey’s testimony will help to “answer some of the questions that have arisen since Director Comey was so suddenly dismissed by the President.”
After news of Comey’s memo broke, which allegedly states that President Trump asked him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Congress has been hoping that the former FBI director would agree to testify. His agreeing to do so comes just after reports on Friday noted that the President told Russian officials in a meeting last week that he fired “nut job” Comey, which relieved “great pressure” on him.