Comey To Testify Before Senate Intel Committee
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
WASHINGTON (CBSMiami/AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey has agreed to testify before the Senate intelligence committee after Memorial Day.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, and the ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, announced Friday that Comey will testify in an open setting before the committee.
The date of the hearing has not yet been set.
Burr says the committee wants to hear from Comey on his role in the development of the U.S. intelligence agencies' assessment that Russia interfered in last year's election.
He says he hopes Comey's testimony will answer some of the questions that have arisen since Comey was suddenly dismissed by President Donald Trump.
After Comey was fired, a senior FBI official told CBS News, "There is a whole lot of interfering in the Russia investigation." The official was referring to White House and Department of Justice actions as they relate to the Russia investigation.
Related: Report States Trump Shared Classified Info With Russians
The White House said in a statement that Comey was terminated and removed from office based on "the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions."
The following morning, Trump said he fired Comey because he "wasn't not doing a good job."
Trump made the remarks to reporters in the Oval Office with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger after a closed meeting with Russia's foreign minister.
"Very simply he was not doing a good job," Trump said in his first in-person statement to the press since Comey's firing Tuesday.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller will head a special, independent counsel to investigate the Russian government's efforts to influence the 2016 Presidential election.
Rosenstein, who penned the recommendation to fire Comey, chose Mueller.
Mueller released a brief statement, which read, "I accept this responsibility and will discharge it to the best of my ability."
Interestingly, Mueller and Comey go way back. In 2004, the two teamed up to stop the Bush administration's illegal extension of a domestic spying program put in place after 9/11.
(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
