(CN) - Fired FBI Director James Comey on Thursday will confirm reports that President Donald Trump pressed him to end the bureau’s investigation into former NSA chief Michael Flynn, and, separately, described the inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election as “a cloud,” asking “what we could do to ‘lift the cloud.'”
Comey released his seven-page opening statement online Wednesday in advance of his highly anticipated testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. He is set to testify before the committee Thursday morning.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Wednesday afternoon that she didn't know whether the president has had a chance to review the document.
In the wake of the statement's release, Two House Democrats launched a longshot bid to impeach the president.
The effort by Reps. Al Green, of Texas, and Brad Sherman, of California, has little chance of success in the Republican-led House.
Nevertheless, the lawmakers said Wednesday they are drafting articles of impeachment because they are convinced Trump obstructed justice when he fired Comey.
"The question really is whether the president can obstruct justice with impunity," Green said. "We live in a country where no congressmen, no senator and not even the president of the United States of America is above the law."
Comey's statement says shortly after Flynn was fired in early February, the president told him he hoped that Comey could "let go" of the investigation.
“He is a good guy and has been through a lot,” Comey reports the president saying. "He repeated that Flynn hadn’t done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the vice president.
"He then said, '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." I replied only that 'he is a good guy' ... I did not say I would 'let this go.'”
Comey goes on to say he understood the president to be requesting that the FBI drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.
"I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn’s departure and the
controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI’s role as an independent investigative agency."
The most explosive exchange appears to have occurred on the morning of March 30, when Comey says the president called him at the FBI.
"He described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.'”
At another point in the memo, Comey reports that the president said to him, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty."
The statement was allegedly made during a January 27 dinner Comey had with the president in the Green Room of the White House.