Ive got one question for you, Mr. Comey: Where. Is. The. Pee pee tape?!
Mr. Comey himself, about to give us some of that "honest loyalty." ZACH GIBSON / STRINGER

Last month Donald Trump fired "nut job" James Comey as FBI director for "this Russia thing," but only after asking him to end the bureau's investigation into former national security advisor and Turkish lobbyist Michael Flynn. Today, the tall man who once tried to blend in with the Oval Office curtains in order to avoid being the object of Trump's public affection, the man who was "extremely careless" with his Twitter account, and the man who was "extremely careless" in his handling of Clinton's e-mails, will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about all that stuff.

The MSM has been selling this story like a prize fight for the last couple days because even broadcast journalists need to eat, but also because the interactions Trump had with Comey before firing him, which the director details in the surprisingly thrilling prepared testimony Comey released yesterday, sound an awful lot like OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, which is bad.

So, was Comey's prepared testimony the carpet bomb before the invasion? Or will this be a kinda boring follow-up sesh? Will Trump live-Tweet the whole thing, as he's promised? Will this lead to impeachment?! Who knows. But we're all about to find out right now. Follow along, slog friends!

You can catch up on all things Comey here.

You can listen to me, Dan, and Eli talk about what we expect to happen during this testimony on Blabbermouth.

*Updates*

Vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner, laid the whole thing out before Comey’s testimony began, saying that “director Comey’s firing raises serious questions.”

“This is not a witch hunt. This is not fake news,” Warner said, regarding the seriousness of the Senate committee's investigation. “It’s an effort to protect our country from a new threat that will not go away anytime soon.” It was unclear to me whether he was talking about Russian espionage or Donald Trump himself.

Comey came out swinging, saying that the Trump’s administration’s initial explanation for firing Comey—unprecedentedly announcing the FBI re-opening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server a few weeks before the 2016 election—“didn’t make sense to [him] for a whole bunch of reasons,” he said, mentioning the amount of time that had passed between his firing and his handling of Clinton’s e-mail scandal. He claimed Trump straight up lied about the FBI being in disarray, and about the bureau’s agents losing faith in their leader, which were two sort of sub-reasons Trump used to justify his firing.

But thennnnn, as Chairman Burr began the first round of questions, Comey started being Comey. He said no one from Trump’s administration asked him to stop the Russian investigation, as far as he understood. He wouldn’t talk about the pee pee tape *ahem* the Steele dossier “in an open setting.” And generally, in the first act at least, he seemed to just want to talk about the greatness of the FBI. That Comey would take this opportunity to defend the FBI like a drunk bro defending his bro at a bro party surprises absolutely zero people.

But thennnn Comey essentially called Trump a liar. When Sen. Warner asked why the director wrote so many memos about his conversations with Trump, Comey said he did so considering “the nature of the person" he was dealing with.

“I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meetings,” he said.

That's the former FBI director, the guy Trump supporters have to thank because he "probably cost Clinton the election," calling Trump a liar. That's big.

Turning momentarily to Twitter during the early-middle part of the Comey testimony, one would find the following very good tweets, the collection of which more or less reflected my feelings at the time:






In another moment of relatively high drama, after Comey said he understood Trump to be asking him to "drop any investigation into Flynn’s account of his conversation of the Russians," Senator Feinstein flattered Comey by stating the obvious: “You’re big, you’re strong." Then she asked, "I know what happens to people when they walk in [to Oval Office]—there is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didn’t you say, 'Mr. President, this is wrong?'”

"
I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in," Comey said. “Maybe other people would be stronger” in that situation, he continued.

Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Risch spent most of their time trying speciously to draw a distinction between Trump “ordering” or “directing” Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn, reminding everyone that Trump wasn't and isn't under a counter-intelligence nor a criminal investigation, and also asking the U.S.’s physically giant former top cop why he wasn’t strong enough to tell the President he was wrong. Which, fair. But on that first note:


Comey revealed a few new details not included in his prepared testimony, including the fact that he gave his memos to a law professor at Columbia University to leak to the press. He described the prof as a personal friend. Comey also said Trump would call him just to ask if he was okay, which sounds to me like soft intimidation + just Trump being creepy as fuck. If there are tapes, Comey demanded they be released. Other than those few new-ish facts, Comey kept a lot of answers about the Trump campaign investigation close to his chest. He threaded the needle thusly:


But he also wanted to stress the threat Russia poses to democracy:


Senator John McCain, who got in the last round of questioning for the public testimony, seemed very tired. He spent his seven minutes transparently attempting to tie the FBI's criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server to the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's potential collusion with Russia. "I'm a little confused, Senator," Comey said, before emphasizing the difference between the two investigations. But her e-mails! .

Instead of live-Tweeting his response to the hearing, Trump decided to go through the proper channels: