President Donald Trump asked James Comey for [loyalty" four months beforehe fired him as Federal Bureau of Investigation director over what he called the [Russia thing".
According to prepared remarks for his appearance before Congress on Thursday, Mr Comey said Mr Trump had also urged him to drop any investigation related to former national security adviser Michael Flynn having lied about talks with the Russian ambassador to the US.
Mr Comey said the request was [very concerning" given the FBI`s role as an independent agency. However, the former FBI chief will also make it clear that he did not believe that Mr Trump was trying to shut down a wider probe into connections between his presidential campaign aides and Russian officials.
[I could be wrong but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn`s departure," Mr Comey will tell the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday.
His first appearance on Capitol Hill since his abrupt ousting a month ago marks one of the most consequential congressional hearings in years. Critics accuse Mr Trump of attempting to obstruct justice and make comparisons to the Watergate scandal that toppled Richard Nixon.
The White House has been dogged by the Russia scandal, which the FBI has been probing since July. Mr Trump fired Mr Flynn after just 24 days after the retired general misled Mike Pence, the vice-president, about his talks with the Russian envoy. The FBI is also looking at connections between Jared Kushner, Mr Trump`s son-in-law, and Russians.
In his prepared statement for the Senate hearing, Mr Comey said he had nine private conversations - three in person and six on the phone - with Mr Trump over four months. By comparison, he had only two conversations with President Barack Obama in three years.
In the first meeting on January 6, Mr Comey told Mr Trump that the FBI did not have [an open counter-intelligence case on him". His reassurance came after he had informed the president-elect during a private discussion about unverified claims regarding his personal behaviour, which included allegations involving prostitutes.
Mr Comey said he grew concerned about the intentions of Mr Trump after a private dinner on January 27, which he had expected would be attended by more people. During the meeting, Mr Trump told the FBI director that [I need loyalty, I expect loyalty". Mr Comey says he later responded by saying that [you will always get honesty from me."
[My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretence that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship," Mr Comey said. [That concerned me greatly, given the FBI`s traditionally independent status."
Mr Comey said his concerns were heightened during a private meeting in the Oval Office on February 14, the day after Mr Flynn had been fired. After telling Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general who oversees the FBI, to leave the room, Mr Trump said: [I want to talk about Mike Flynn."
[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," Mr Trump told Mr Comey, according to his account.
Republicans have previously questioned why Mr Comey did not raise alarms about the situation before he was fired. In his prepared remarks, he said he had decided not to tell Mr Sessions - who had been a Trump campaign adviser - because he expected that he was going to recuse himself from any Russia-related investigations.
He said he later asked Mr Sessions to ensure that he was never left alone with the president in future because it was [inappropriate" but that Mr Sessions [did not reply".
Mr Comey also detailed several phone calls with the president. In the first on March 30, Mr Trump called the Russia probe [a cloud" that was impairing his ability to govern and asked what the FBI could do to [lift the cloud". Mr Trump denied having anything to do with Russia, said he had no involvement with [hookers", and had always assumed his conversations in Russia were recorded.
Mr Comey said he informed Mr Trump that he had told congressional leaders that the FBI was not investigating Mr Trump personally, prompting Mr Trump to repeatedly reply: [We need to get that fact out", according to Mr Comey.
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