1/ Comey blasted the White House for “lies, plain and simple.” The fired FBI director accused Trump and his aides during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today of defaming him after he was fired. Comey believed that Trump had clearly tried to derail the FBI investigation into Michael Flynn. (Politico / New York Times)

  • Comey goes nuclear in showdown with Trump. He accused Trump and his top aides of lying, suggesting that the president wanted special treatment in exchange for loyalty, and he said he thinks he lost his job because of how he handled the Russia investigation. (ABC News)
  • Comey’s testimony takes aim at Trump’s credibility. (Associated Press)
  • Comey’s testimony shifts focus to Trump and his conduct in the office. (Washington Post)
  • Comey said that he found the shifting explanations for why he was fired both confusing and concerning. (Reuters)
  • Annotated copy of Comey’s opening statement. Here are Comey’s full prepared remarks, annotated by NPR journalists. (NPR)
  • Comey’s testimony transcript. The full text. (Politico)
  • Republican National Committee will lead Trump’s response to Comey’s testimony. A team of about 60 RNC staffers will mount a political offensive aimed at Democrats in response to Comey’s testimony. The RNC has lined up a host of surrogates to appear on national and local television and radio to support Trump. The rapid response team will leverage their database of opposition research to use Democrats’ past statements against them. (Wall Street Journal)

2/ Comey has called Trump a liar 5 times today. The White House says that’s not true. Comey punched back at Trump’s characterization of him as being unpopular at the FBI and the idea that the bureau was disorganized and chaotic. In addition, Comey disputed claims by Trump that he had asked to keep his job. (CNN)

3/ Comey: The administration is working to “defame” me and the FBI, and telling “lies” to the American people. “Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader,” Comey said. (ABC News)

4/ Comey: “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” During his testimony, Comey expressed his hope that his conversations with Trump were recorded. (The Hill)

5/ The White House won’t say if there’s a recording system in the Oval Office. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she has “no idea” if Trump has a recording system in his office, despite the president suggesting he may have recordings of his conversations with Comey. (HuffPost)

6/ Paul Ryan defended Trump’s attempt to influence Comey: He’s “new at this.” He added that Trump is “new to government. And so he probably wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses. (HuffPost)

7/ Comey helped release details of his meetings with Trump. Comey acknowledged that he shared copies of his memos documenting his Trump meetings with a “close friend” — a professor at Columbia Law School — who could share the information with reporters. (Washington Post)

8/ Trump’s lawyer said Comey made “unauthorized disclosures” of privileged talks designed to damage the president. Marc Kasowitz said Comey’s testimony “makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election.” (USA Today)

9/ Paul Ryan: Trump asking for Comey’s loyalty is “obviously” inappropriate and it’s clear that Russia meddled in the US election. “What we need to determine is not whether they did it – we know that. It’s what did they do, how did they do it, how do we prevent it from happening again? And then how do we help our allies so that this doesn’t happen to them?” (CNN)

10/ Comey’s testimony laid out the case that Trump obstructed justice and suggested senior leaders at the FBI might have contemplated the matter before Trump removed him as director. Whether justice was obstructed, Comey said, was a question for recently appointed special counsel Robert Mueller. (Washington Post)

11/ Former Watergate special prosecutor: I helped prosecute Watergate. Comey’s statement is sufficient evidence for an obstruction of justice case. The ball is in Bob Mueller’s court to decide whether he has enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction and, if so, whether to reach the same conclusion that I reached in the Nixon investigation — that, like everyone else in our system, a president is accountable for committing a federal crime. (Washington Post)

12/ Trump’s FBI pick has Russian ties. Christopher Wray’s law firm – King & Spalding – represents Rosneft and Gazprom, two of Russia’s biggest state-controlled oil companies. (USA Today)

13/ The House of Representatives passed a bill that would gut major elements of Dodd-Frank, the regulatory legislation drafted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The Financial Choice Act exempts financial institutions deemed “too big to fail” from restrictions that limit risk taking. Republicans say Dodd-Frank regulations are the primary reason for anemic economic growth in the US. While the bill passed the House, it faces long odds of becoming law as it would require the support of Democrats in the Senate in order to reach Trump’s desk. (New York Times / CNN Money / Washington Post / CNBC)

14/ House and Senate Democrats plan to sue Trump over conflicts of interest related to the his corporation’s business deals and foreign governments looking to curry favor with the administration. They claim he is breaking the law by refusing to relinquish ownership of his sprawling real-estate empire while it continues to profit from business with foreign governments. (Politico)

15/ Trump doesn’t plan to fire Sessions, despite his frustration with Sessions for the handling of the administration’s failed travel ban and for recusing himself from the Russia probe. (Bloomberg)

  • The White House won’t say if Trump has confidence in Jeff Sessions. For two straight days, Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders declined to say if Trump has confidence in the attorney general. (Axios)

16/ Pulling out of the Paris climate agreement could accelerate damage to Trump’s real estate empire. Mar-a-Lago, the apartment towers nears Miami, and his Doral golf course are all threatened by rising seas. (Associated Press)

17/ Hawaii passed a law to document rising sea levels and set strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hawaii is the first state to enact legislation implementing parts of the Paris climate agreement. (NBC News)

poll/ Trump’s approval rating hits 34%, a new Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday finds. 40% of voters do not expect Trump to complete his four-year term. (CNN)

More Comey News

1/ Trump, Comey and Obstruction of Justice: A Primer. As the fired FBI director testifies about his dealings with the president, here’s what you need to know about a murky law. (New York Times)

2/ Comey’s Political Shrewdness Is on Display in Tussle With Trump. Comey, a savvy veteran of Washington, has shown why presidents are normally loath to fire their FBI directors. (New York Times)

3/ Trump vs. Comey: A timeline. Here’s a timeline on the rupture between the president and the FBI director. (Washington Post)

4/ How cable news networks are reacting to Comey’s hearing. Coverage of former FBI director James Comey’s testimony looks about the same across cable news channels. A closeup of a Senator forming a question, a wide show of the room — there’s just not much to show on TV. (Washington Post)

  • How partisan media covered Comey’s hearing. These are the headlines from right-leaning and left-leaning news organizations. (Axios)

6/ Comey’s Duty to Correct. The former FBI director’s insistence on setting the record straight may have cost Clinton the election and Comey his job—and now it’s costing Trump. (The Atlantic)

7/ Who are the senators asking Comey questions today? There are 15 full-time members of the committee — eight Republicans and seven Democrats — and the panel is considered to be one of the last bastions of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. (Washington Post)

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