Comey hearing opens in Senate with Trump's actions in focus

A highly charged Senate hearing opened Thursday with fired FBI director James Comey to testify on his bombshell allegations suggesting President Donald Trump sought to interfere with a probe into Russian election meddling.

Hundreds of people squeezed into a jam-packed room, some waiting in line since early morning, for the historic hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and US television channels were broadcasting the event across the country live.

On Wednesday Comey released a statement detailing how Trump repeatedly badgered him earlier this year over the sensitive investigation into Russian interference and possible collusion with members of the Trump campaign.

Senators were to focus on whether the actions of Trump, who fired Comey on May 9, added up to obstruction of justice, a serious crime that could potentially undermine the presidency.

Whether Trump will be watching as the televised testimony opens was unclear, but White House aides were reported to be trying to keep him busy and away from Twitter. He is scheduled to address a conference of Christian conservatives two hours after the start of the 10 am (1400 GMT) Senate hearing.

Trump abruptly fired Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 9, admitting later that the Russia probe was on his mind at the time.

In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in one-on-one encounters and in phone calls to press him on the probe into Trump campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republican's favor.

At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the Republican billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him.

"The president said, '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," Comey said.

In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month Comey said Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about his unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Comey did not say whether he thought the president's actions amounted to obstruction of justice, a serious crime that could lead to impeachment.

But he called Trump's approaches "very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."

He also described trying to insulate himself and the FBI from political pressure in the weeks before Trump fired him, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labeled it "fake news."

"This is not how a President of the United States behaves," Senator Mark Warner said in his opening remarks, released Thursday hours before the hearing.

"Regardless of the outcome of our investigation into those Russia links, Director Comey's firing and his testimony raise separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of."

- US capital riveted -

Cable news stations set countdown clocks to the hearing, and a number of bars in Washington were opening early, with TVs tuned to live broadcasts of the hearing -- one of them offering free drinks every time Trump tweets about Comey.

On site, more than 300 people were lined up for the hearing in a room with 88 public seats.

"It's a piece of history and I wanted to be here for it," said one young House staffer who asked not to be named -- and who arrived at 5:15 am.

Analysts said Comey, an intensely by-the-book law enforcer whose handling of a separate investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton last year may have cost her the presidential election, was studiously avoiding accusing the president of a crime.

But Comey was not the only one who reportedly leaned on by Trump. The Washington Post reported that the president also approached Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers about the Flynn probe.

Both Coats and Rogers, testifying Wednesday, said they never felt "pressure" to intervene in the investigation.

But neither denied the Post stories, and dodged questions about whether Trump had asked them to intervene.

- Trump 'vindicated' by Comey -

The White House has sought to put a positive spin on Comeys' bombshell testimony.

"The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda," said Marc Kasowitz, hired by Trump as his personal lawyer to deal with issues linked to the Russia investigation, after the statement was released.

But Republicans were uneasy.

Asked if Trump had acted appropriately, Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr said: "I don't think that from what I've read there's anything of wrongdoing, but I will match that with his (Comey's) verbal testimony, and weigh it against the evidence of our investigation to date."

Democrats have been quick to draw parallels with the Watergate scandal, when president Richard Nixon, facing impeachment for obstruction of justice, was forced to resign in 1973.

Philip Allen Lacovara, a former US Justice Department lawyer with the Watergate special prosecutors in the 1970s, said Comey's "meticulously detailed" description of Trump's request to get the criminal probe dropped was "red meat for a prosecutor."

"But whether a sitting president may be indicted while in office is an open question," Lacovara wrote in The Washington Post.