The nation’s top intelligence official told associates in March that President Trump asked him if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James B. Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials. 
 
 On March 22, less than a week after being confirmed by the Senate, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats attended a briefing at the White House together with officials from several government agencies. As the briefing was wrapping up, Trump asked everyone to leave the room except for Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. 
 
 The president then started complaining about the FBI investigation and Comey’s handling of it, said officials familiar with the account Coats gave to associates. Two days earlier, Comey had confirmed in a congressional hearing that the bureau was probing whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 race. 
 
 [Inside Trump’s anger and impatience — and his sudden decision to fire Comey] 
 
 After the encounter, Coats discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. 
 
 The events involving Coats show the president went further than just asking intelligence officials to deny publicly the existence of any evidence showing collusion during the 2016 election, as The Washington Post reported in May. The interaction with Coats indicates that Trump aimed to enlist top officials to have Comey curtail the bureau’s probe. 
 
 [Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence] 
 
 Coats will testify on Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Lawmakers on the panel said they would press him for information about his interactions with the president regarding the FBI investigation. 
 
 The question of whether the president obstructed the Russia investigation is expected to take center stage this week with Comey’s highly anticipated testimony on the Hill on Thursday. Comey associates say that before the director was fired in May, the president had asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn, and Comey refused. 
 
 Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), declined to comment on whether Trump asked Coats to intervene with Comey regarding the Flynn investigation. Hale said in a statement: “Director Coats does not discuss his private conversations with the President. However, he has never felt pressured by the President or anyone else in the Administration to influence any intelligence matters or ongoing investigations.” 
 
 A spokesman for Pompeo declined to comment on the closed-door discussions. The White House referred questions to outside lawyers, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Trump has repeatedly denied any coordination took place between his campaign and the Russian government, which, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, stole emails embarrassing to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and leaked them to undermine her campaign. 
 
 Flynn had served as an enthusiastic surrogate for Trump during the campaign and then was fired after just 24 days as national security adviser over revelations he misrepresented his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the United States. 
 
 [Flynn’s swift downfall: From a phone call to a forced resignation] 
 
 The incidents suggest that Trump may not have appreciated the traditional barriers meant to insulate the intelligence agencies from politics. 
 
 Though the ODNI oversees other intelligence agencies, the FBI director operates independently on many matters. For example, Comey kept James R. Clapper Jr., Coats’s predecessor in the Obama administration, in the dark about the bureau’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. 
 
 A day or two after the March 22 meeting, the president followed up with a phone call to Coats, according to officials familiar with the discussions. In the call, Trump asked Coats to issue a public statement denying the existence of any evidence of coordination between his campaign and the Russian government. Again, Coats decided not to act on the request. 
 
 Trump similarly approached Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to ask him to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of coordination, as The Post previously reported, according to current and former officials. Like Coats, Rogers refused to comply with the president’s request. 
 
 Trump announced in January that he was nominating Coats to serve as director of national intelligence, responsible for overseeing U.S. intelligence agencies and for briefing the president on global developments. 
 
 In February, as tensions flared between intelligence agencies and the White House over Russia and other issues, some of Trump’s advisers floated the idea of appointing a New York billionaire, Stephen A. Feinberg, to undertake a review of the ODNI. Coats, who was preparing for his confirmation hearing, felt blindsided, officials said. 
 
 The White House backed away from the idea of naming Feinberg after Coats, members of the intelligence community and Congress raised objections. 
 
 Officials say Trump’s advisers have since revived their proposal to appoint Feinberg to a senior position, possibly to review the roles of the ODNI and other intelligence agencies. 
 
 Some officials said they viewed the prospective appointment of Feinberg as an effort by White House officials to put pressure on intelligence agencies to close ranks with the White House. 
 
 In an appearance last month before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Coats refused to provide details about his interactions with Trump. 
 
 But he indicated that he would cooperate with the Russia probe now being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Under questioning by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Coats said that if asked, he would provide details of his conversations with Trump to Mueller. 
 
 Coats also said that if he is called before an investigative committee, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee, “I certainly will provide them with what I know and what I don’t know.” He said the Trump administration had not directed the ODNI to withhold information from members of Congress conducting oversight. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 All eyes are on Comey this Thursday — again 
 
 Legal analysts: Trump might have obstructed justice, if Comey’s allegation is true 
 
 Putin ridicules allegations of collusion between Trump aides and Russian officials ||||| White House press secretary Sean Spicer gets a note from a staff member during the daily press briefing at the White House, Tuesday, June 6, 2017, in Washington. Spicer discussed Trump's tweets, former... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — With fired FBI Director James Comey's highly anticipated congressional testimony just a day away, the White House and its allies are scrambling for ways to offset potential damage. 
 
 Asked Tuesday about the testimony, President Donald Trump was tight-lipped: "I wish him luck," he told reporters. 
 
 Comey's testimony Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee could expose new details regarding his discussions with Trump about the federal investigation into Russia's election meddling. 
 
 Comey could also bring up other aspects of his dealings with the Trump administration. On Tuesday evening a person familiar with the situation said Comey had told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he did not want to be left alone with Trump. 
 
 The person, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the comment was made because of concerns Comey had about Trump. 
 
 It was not immediately clear when the conversation occurred. But The New York Times, which first reported the interaction with Sessions, said it came after Trump had asked Comey in February to end an FBI investigation into Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. 
 
 Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior declined to comment. He said Sessions "doesn't believe it's appropriate to respond to media inquiries on matters that may be related to ongoing investigations." 
 
 Trump's White House and its allies are crafting a strategy aimed at undermining Comey's credibility. Both White House officials and an outside group that backs Trump plan to hammer Comey in the coming days for misstatements he made about Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails during his last appearance on Capitol Hill. 
 
 An ad created by the pro-Trump Great America Alliance — a nonprofit "issues" group that isn't required to disclose its donors — casts Comey as a "showboat" who was "consumed with election meddling" instead of focusing on combating terrorism. The 30-second spot is slated to run digitally on Wednesday and appear the next day on CNN and Fox News. 
 
 The Republican National Committee has been preparing talking points ahead of the hearing, which will be aired live on multiple TV outlets. An RNC research email Monday issued a challenge to the lawmakers who will question Comey. There's bipartisan agreement, the email says, that Comey "needs to answer a simple question about his conversations with President Trump: If you were so concerned, why didn't you act on it or notify Congress?" 
 
 Comey's testimony marks his first public comments since he was abruptly ousted by Trump on May 9. Since then, Trump and Comey allies have traded competing narratives about their interactions. The president asserted that Comey told him three times that he was not personally under investigation, while the former director's associates allege Trump asked Comey if he could back off an investigation into Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser because he misled the White House about his ties to Russia. 
 
 Democrats have accused Trump of firing Comey to upend the FBI's Russia probe, which focused in large part on whether campaign aides coordinated with Moscow to hack Democratic groups during the election. Days after Comey's firing, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the federal investigation. 
 
 The new revelation about Comey's uneasiness with Trump brings to mind a posting last month by Comey friend Benjamin Wittes on his Lawfare blog, in which he said Comey "saw it as an ongoing task on his part to protect the rest of the Bureau from improper contacts and interferences from a group of people he did not regard as honorable." 
 
 Despite the mounting legal questions now shadowing the White House, Trump has needled Comey publicly. In a tweet days after the firing, he appeared to warn Comey that he might have recordings of their private discussions, something the White House has neither confirmed nor denied. 
 
 White House officials appear eager to keep the president away from television and Twitter Thursday, though those efforts rarely succeed. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president plans to attend an infrastructure summit in the morning, then address the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" conference at 12:30 p.m. 
 
 "The president's got a full day on Thursday," Spicer said. 
 
 The White House had hoped to set up a "war room" stocked with Trump allies and top-flight lawyers to combat questions about the FBI and congressional investigations into possible ties between the campaign and Russia. However, that effort has largely stalled, both because of a lack of decision-making in the West Wing and concerns among some potential recruits about joining a White House under the cloud of investigation. 
 
 "If there isn't a strategy, a coherent, effective one, this is really going to put us all behind the eight ball. We need to start fighting back. And so far, I don't see a lot of fight," said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign aide. 
 
 Still, Trump supporters say they are willing to step in to help the White House deflect any accusations from Comey. 
 
 "If we feel he crosses a line, we'll fire back," said Ed Rollins, chief strategist of Great America PAC, the political arm of the group airing the Comey ad. 
 
 __ 
 
 Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report. 
 
 __ 
 
 Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Julie Bykowicz at http://twitter.com/bykowicz ||||| Former FBI Director James Comey's testimony Thursday is one of the most highly anticipated hearings in recent memory — but his words are unlikely to surprise special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team has been in contact with Comey, according to two of his associates. 
 
 Friends of Comey say they expect the testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee to largely stick to his conversations with President Donald Trump and is unlikely to break ground on the investigation into potential collusion between Russia and any of Trump's associates. That is not surprising, legal experts say, because of the ongoing investigation that Mueller took over last month. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 These people say Comey is trying to be careful "to just describe what happened with the president and how he felt about it," in the words of one associate. But this person said Comey "wants to correct the record, from his point of view, on certain things the president and his aides have said." 
 
 One Comey friend said "there had been conversations" between Comey and Mueller's team before the testimony and "Mueller won't be surprised." 
 
 Mueller is still at the early stages of his investigation, which will likely be a sprawling probe into whether Trump’s campaign aides colluded with Russian officials who were trying to tip the election Trump’s way. The probe could also include allegations from Comey that Trump pressured him during an Oval Office meeting to back off an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 
 
 Trump abruptly fired Comey last month, and he said in a television interview that the pressure from the Russia investigation was a factor in his decision. 
 
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 Comey’s friends and associates said the former FBI official is likely to shed new light on his communications with Trump. 
 
 "My fundamental expectation is we're going to learn a lot. This is a format he's extremely comfortable with and he does very well with. He has an ability to present in a coherent, sustained narrative, " said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Comey friend. "I suspect we will not learn anything about the substance of the investigation." 
 
 Wittes said he was unaware of the details of what Comey would say but expected that his friend took detailed notes on his conversations with senior White House officials, including Trump. 
 
 "I would not be surprised if his record of those interactions are quite extensive and quite complete," Wittes said. 
 
 Peter Carr, a Mueller spokesman, declined to comment on the testimony. 
 
 One Comey associate said he wasn't limited in what he could say in his testimony but that Comey was likely to curb his comments because of the investigation. This person said Comey was looking forward to Thursday and "has been really wanting to testify in front of everyone." 
 
 "If he did it behind closed doors, it was going to be more anonymous sources this, anonymous sources that," this person said. 
 
 But the White House is far from enthusiastic about the public spectacle that’s shaping up. 
 
 Several White House officials noted with frustration the countdown clocks that have been on TV this week before the testimony. "It's like nothing else matters this week," one Republican close to the White House said. "I think they feel like they are just waiting and waiting and waiting and have no control." 
 
 They have begun talking to surrogates about questioning Comey's credibility — particularly his previous testimony that he didn't feel there was interference into the Russia probe. However, Comey’s comments were specifically about potential interference from the attorney general or senior Justice Department officials. 
 
 “There is bipartisan agreement, including from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that former FBI Director Comey needs to answer a simple question about his conversations with President Trump: If you were so concerned, why didn’t you act on it or notify Congress?" wrote the Republican National Committee in an email. 
 
 But two other White House officials said they aren't exactly sure what Comey would say — or exactly what they should do to minimize the fallout. 
 
 Trump, however, had a few words for Comey as reporters shouted questions at him on Tuesday about the upcoming testimony: "I wish him good luck." 
 
 Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report. ||||| Alone in the White House in recent days, President Trump — frustrated and defiant — has been spoiling for a fight, according to his confidants and associates. 
 
 Glued even more than usual to the cable news shows that blare from the televisions in his private living quarters, or from the 60-inch flat screen he had installed in his cramped study off the Oval Office, he has fumed about “fake news.” Trump has seethed as his agenda has stalled in Congress and the courts. He has chafed against the pleas for caution from his lawyers and political advisers, tweeting whatever he wants, whenever he wants. 
 
 And on Thursday, the president will come screen-to-screen with the FBI director he fired, James B. Comey, thoughts of whom have consumed, haunted and antagonized Trump since Comey launched an expanding Russia investigation that the president slammed as a “witch hunt.” 
 
 Comey’s testimony is a political Super Bowl — with television networks interrupting regular programming to air it, and some Washington offices and bars making plans for special viewings. 
 
 Trump is keen to be a participant rather than just another viewer, two senior White House officials said, including the possibility of taking to Twitter to offer acerbic commentary during the hearing. 
 
 1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × A look at President Trump’s first year in office, so far View Photos The president’s term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the news media. Caption Scenes from the Republican’s beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 “I wish him luck,” the president told reporters on Tuesday. 
 
 “He’s infuriated at a deep-gut, personal level that the elite media has tolerated [the Russia story] and praised Comey,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich said. “He’s not going to let some guy like that smear him without punching him as hard as he can.” 
 
 [All eyes will be on James Comey this Thursday — again] 
 
 This account of Trump’s mind-set and the preparations of his team in the run-up to Comey’s testimony is based on interviews with 20 White House officials, Trump friends and other well-connected Republicans, many of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity to offer candid perspectives. 
 
 The president’s lawyers and aides have been urging him to resist engaging, and they hope to keep him busy Thursday with other events meant to compete for his — and the news media’s — attention. 
 
 “The president’s going to have a very, very busy day,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said. “I think his focus is going to be on pursuing the agenda and the priorities that he was elected to do.” 
 
 As of now, Trump’s Thursday morning — when Comey is scheduled to start testifying — is open. He plans to deliver a 12:30 p.m. speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference in Washington, followed by a 3:30 p.m. meeting with governors and mayors on infrastructure projects. 
 
 (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) 
 
 Jay Sekulow, a high-profile conservative lawyer in Washington, has met several times recently with Trump and said he found the president to have his attention squarely on his proposals. 
 
 “He’s been very much in control and in command,” Sekulow said. “I don’t sense any siege or panic at all. . . . I’ve been there a lot, and I don’t see the president in any context distracted or flustered by any of this. I just don’t see it.” 
 
 But privately, Trump’s advisers said they are bracing for a worst-case scenario: that he ignores their advice and tweets his mind. 
 
 “He’s not going to take an attack by James Comey laying down,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and former political adviser. “Trump is a fighter, he’s a brawler and he’s the best counterpuncher in American politics.” 
 
 The president increasingly has come to see Twitter as his preferred method of communicating with his supporters, no matter the pitfalls. 
 
 “The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning, making a reference to the “mainstream media.” 
 
 [The broadcast networks will air Comey’s hearing live. That’s a big deal.] 
 
 The West Wing, meanwhile, has taken on an atmosphere of legal uncertainty. White House counsel Donald F. McGahn has told staff to hold onto emails, documents and phone records, officials said, a move of caution designed to prepare the staff for future legal requests, should they come. McGahn has specifically advised staffers to avoid what are known as the “burn bags” in the executive branch that are often used to discard papers. 
 
 While people familiar with the White House counsel’s office described McGahn’s moves as appropriate steps because of the ongoing probes, they said many junior staffers are increasingly skittish and fearful of their communications eventually finding their way into the hands of investigators. 
 
 Some staffers nervous about their own personal liability are contemplating hiring lawyers and have become more rigorous about not putting things in text messages or emails that they would not want to be subpoenaed, one person familiar with the situation said. 
 
 Attempting to invoke executive privilege to restrict Comey’s testimony was never seriously considered by Trump or his legal team, said one senior White House official. But, this official added, the White House liked floating the possibility as a distraction. 
 
 In the weeks leading up to Comey’s testimony, the White House had privately tried to erect a war room that would handle the communications and legal strategies for responding to the Russia matter. Former Trump campaign aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie were in discussions to lead it. 
 
 But the plan was scuttled, as with so much else in Trump’s administration, because of internal disagreements, according to multiple officials. Arguments included whether the war room would be run from inside or outside the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.; who would staff it; whether they could be trusted by the president’s high-ranking advisers, or even trust one another; and whether Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s outside counsel, would ultimately control the message. 
 
 Kasowitz, who has a long-standing relationship with Trump, has been operating as an island of sorts in Trump world. He has been meeting regularly with the president and has a nascent relationship with McGahn, but he has not widely shared his legal strategy within the West Wing, according to two officials involved. 
 
 Kasowitz, whose combative personality mirrors Trump’s, has not found it easy to entice other big-name lawyers with Washington experience to join the cause because many prominent attorneys are reluctant to have him giving them direction and wonder whether he will be able to keep Trump from stumbling, one official said. 
 
 In the absence of a war room — and with the departure of communications director Michael Dubke — planning for the White House’s response to the Comey hearing has fallen largely to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and his lieutenants. 
 
 Trump’s team is preparing a campaign-style line of attack aimed at undercutting Comey’s reputation. They plan to portray him as a “showboat” and to bring up past controversies from his career, including his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2016, according to people involved in the planning. 
 
 The Republican National Committee has lined up a roster of surrogates to appear on conservative news stations nationwide to defend Trump. But a list the RNC distributed on Tuesday could hardly be described as star-studded: The names include Bob Paduchik, an RNC co-chair who worked on Trump’s Ohio campaign; Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R); and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R). 
 
 Trump so far has been unable to recruit reinforcements for his beleaguered senior staff. Conversations about former Trump campaign official David Urban possibly joining the White House have stalled, although he remains in contact with several Trump advisers, officials said. 
 
 [Trump’s legal team falters as D.C. heavyweights take a pass] 
 
 The White House has long struggled with its communications team, with Trump both privately and publicly voicing displeasure with his current staff. Press secretary Sean Spicer has started appearing less frequently on camera, and Trump and several top advisers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, are considering a range of options to revamp the structure. 
 
 The White House recently approached Geoff Morrell — who served as the Pentagon press secretary for more than four years under former defense secretary Robert Gates — about coming inside the administration and overhauling the communications operation, according to three people with knowledge of the overture. 
 
 Morrell declined to comment, but BP announced last month that Morrell would be moving to London this summer to run government relations and communications for the company globally. 
 
 Scott Reed, senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was also approached about taking a communications role within the White House, according to two people familiar with the outreach. Reed declined to comment. 
 
 In addition, Laura Ingraham, a conservative talk-radio host and Trump friend, discussed joining the White House but made clear to officials that she is more comfortable remaining outside as a vocal Trump ally because of her many broadcasting and media commitments, officials said. 
 
 Some Trump loyalists outside the White House who are preparing to go on television news shows Thursday to defend the president and undermine Comey’s testimony said they have been given no talking points, nor seen any evidence of a strategy taking shape. One such loyalist said external supporters are afraid to coordinate too closely with the White House because they fear they could be accused of obstructing justice. 
 
 Trump is personally reaching out to some allies on the Senate Intelligence Committee ahead of their questioning of Comey. He was scheduled to have dinner Tuesday night at the White House with Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), both committee members, along with a few other lawmakers. The dinner had been long scheduled for the president to offer a debrief on his foreign trip, a senior White House official said. 
 
 In the West Wing, people close to the president and junior aides fear that the president’s erratic behavior could have sweeping legal and political consequences, and they are beleaguered by how he has not proved able to concentrate fully on his agenda — this was supposed to be “infrastructure week,” for instance. Many are also resigned to the idea that there is little they can do to moderate or thwart Trump’s moves, so instead they are focused on managing the fallout. 
 
 One Republican close to the White House summed up the staff’s mantra as: “Please, don’t, you’re not helping things.” 
 
 But Trump and several political intimates see a political advantage to the president personally engaging, however unseemly it may appear to traditionalists. 
 
 “He believes in the long run there is an enormous premium on being the person who stands there fighting,” said Gingrich, author of “Understanding Trump,” an upcoming book. “People respond to that and wonder if he’s fighting this hard, maybe he’s right and the other guys are wrong. It’s the core of how he operates.” 
 
 Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor and criminal law expert whose television commentary on the Russia probe has caught the White House’s attention, said he understands why the president would be motivated to speak out to counter Comey’s testimony. 
 
 “Every lawyer would tell the president not to tweet, not to react,” Dershowitz said. “But he’s not listening. This is typical. I tell my clients all the time not to talk and they simply disregard it. It’d be very hard to tell a very wealthy, very powerful man not to tweet. He thinks, ‘I tweeted my way to the presidency,’ and he’s determined to tweet.” 
 
 Mary Jordan and Amber Phillips contributed to this report. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” 
 
 The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year’s election. 
 
 Some legal experts said Comey’s testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but U.S. markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures. 
 
 To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation. 
 
 While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment. 
 
 Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president. 
 
 Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters’ shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus. 
 
 Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt “completely and totally vindicated” by Comey’s account. 
 
 “The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement. 
 
 ‘AWKWARD SILENCE’ 
 
 Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November’s election in Trump’s favour, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion. 
 
 Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe, on May 9. 
 
 Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony. 
 
 Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on Jan. 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” 
 
 “I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence,” Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create “some sort of patronage relationship.” 
 
 On Feb. 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counterterrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door. 
 
 “When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn,’” Comey said in his testimony. 
 
 Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign. 
 
 Comey quoted Trump as telling him: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” 
 
 FILE PHOTO - FBI Director James Comey waits to testify to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Russia's intelligence activities" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo 
 
 On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what “we could do to lift the cloud” of the FBI’s Russia investigation. 
 
 “He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia,” said Comey, who had briefed Trump on “salacious material” that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation. 
 
 Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the uncorroborated dossier of compromising material that Russian operatives allegedly collected on Trump has been “debunked.” 
 
 “Comey’s statement released today needs to be carefully scrutinized as his testimony claims the president was concerned about the dossier,” said Cohen. 
 
 Cohen, along with Flynn, has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a Russia probe. 
 
 LEGAL FALLOUT? 
 
 Some legal experts said Comey’s written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. 
 
 “It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation,” said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School. 
 
 Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn’s character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said. 
 
 Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe. 
 
 “It’s certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It’s certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN. 
 
 Slideshow (6 Images) 
 
 Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump’s request for loyalty from Comey, said it was “very, very critical” that FBI directors remain “independent.” 
 
 But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump’s request. 
 
 “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration,” Burr said.
– With James Comey's much-anticipated testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee approaching, insiders say President Trump is getting ready for a fight. The former FBI chief's testimony begins Thursday morning, and Trump associates say the president is likely to be watching closely and tweeting furiously, reports the Washington Post, which describes the upcoming Senate proceeding as a "political Super Bowl." "He's not going to take an attack by James Comey laying down," says Trump friend Roger Stone. "Trump is a fighter, he's a brawler, and he's the best counterpuncher in American politics." In other developments: Sources tell the New York Times that, in a sign of how much Comey distrusted Trump, he told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he didn't want to be left alone with the president again following a private meeting. Comey did not tell Sessions, however, that Trump had asked him to drop the investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the sources say. The hearing on alleged Russian meddling in the election opens Wednesday, and officials such as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are expected to face questions about Trump's firing of Comey, among other issues, reports Reuters. Sources tell the Washington Post that after a briefing in March, Trump asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats if he could intervene with Comey to have the investigation of Flynn dropped. Coats, the nation's top intelligence official, discussed the request with other officials and decided it was inappropriate, the sources say. The AP reports that with Comey's testimony widely expected to reveal damaging new details about Trump's involvement with the Russia investigation, the White House and its allies are already trying to push back. The pro-Trump Great America Alliance group is airing an ad describing Comey as a "showboat" who was so obsessed with the Russia issue he failed to concentrate on fighting terrorism. Friends of Comey tell Politico that he's likely to stick to describing his interactions with Trump instead of discussing the wider Russia investigation with the Senate panel. Special counsel Robert Mueller is now leading a probe into the alleged election interference, and associates say Comey has already discussed his testimony with Mueller. Trump has declined to use executive privilege to try to stop Comey testifying. When asked about the testimony on Tuesday, the president said: "I wish him luck."