“I didn’t obey that,” Comey said to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “But that’s what I thought.”

At a Feb. 14 meeting at the White House, Comey said Trump strongly defended Flynn, arguing that his former national security adviser “hadn’t done anything wrong’’ in his prior contact with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn had been fired the day before for lying to administration officials, including Vice President Pence, about his communications with Kislyak.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go,” Comey quoted the president as saying. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey told the senators that he was “so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.” He also said that he hoped that the president was serious when he tweeted that there might be tapes of the conversation.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said.

Comey said he now believes he was fired to relieve pressure from the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community has accused of seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election by hacking Democrats.

“I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” he said. “I take him at his word, based on what I know now.’’

Comey said Trump made several public statements that were false after he was fired. Among them, Comey said, was the president’s denial at a White House news conference last month that he ever asked the FBI inquiry into Flynn to be shut-down.

Comey also said Trump “defamed me and the FBI’’ after the president dismissed him last month.

“Those were lies, plain and simple, and I am so sorry the FBI workforce had to hear them, and the American people were told them,” Comey said of Trump’s changing statements about his firing.

The White House initially said Comey was fired because of his controversial handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, on the recommendation of Justice Department leadership. In an interview soon after with NBC, Trump called Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander” and confirmed that the Russia investigation was indeed on his mind when he fired Comey, adding he would have fired the FBI chief regardless of the Justice Department’s recommendation.

Comey said he was “confused” to learn on television that the president “actually” fired him because of the Russia investigation.

Comey said he could not say whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice when the president asked him to drop the FBI’s investigation of Flynn. Comey said questions of obstruction would be investigated by Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who was appointed to be special counsel of the Russia investigation in the wake of Comey’s firing.

Comey did say Flynn was in “legal jeopardy” at the time that Trump made his appeal.

The fired FBI chief said he was never asked by Trump or others to stop the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, but he said Trump’s request that he drop the inquiry related to Flynn “disturbed” him.

Comey said he felt compelled to compose written records of his meetings with the president because he worried Trump might “lie’’ about what transpired.

The former director said he began to document his interactions from his first meeting the president on Jan. 6 after a tense briefing at Trump Tower.

“It was the subject matter and the person I was interacting with,” he said. “It was the nature of the person. I was honestly concerned that he would lie about the nature of our meeting. I felt I got to write it down and I got to write it down in a detailed way. I knew there might come a day when I would need a written record to defend me and the FBI.’’

Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that any claims that FBI was poorly led were “plain and simple” lies. USA TODAY

After Trump suggested in a tweet there might be “tapes” of his conversations with James Comey, the former director said he moved to make aspects of his memos public by enlisting a friend, a Columbia Law School professor, to share the content of his own notes with a reporter. Comey said he hoped news reports would prompt the “appointment of a special counsel.’’ Indeed, the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the Russia probe just one day after the existence of the memos was disclosed.

The information Comey leaked to the press, through an intermediary, contained the content of his Feb. 14 meeting with Trump, when the president pressed him to drop the Flynn investigation.

“I understood this to be my recollection,” Comey said of the memos. “As a private citizen, I felt very important to get It out.”

Richard Burr, R-N.C. said it’s important for Americans to hear Comey’s story. “The American people need to hear your side of the story, just as they need to hear the President’s description of events,” Burr said in his opening statement.

“These interactions also highlight the importance of this Committee’s ongoing (Russia) investigation. Our experienced staff is interviewing all the relevant parties and some of the most sensitive intelligence in our country’s possession. We will establish the facts — separate from rampant speculation — and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgement. Only then will we, as a nation, be able to move forward and put this episode to rest.”

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate panel, described Comey’s prepared testimony as “disturbing.’’ He cited Trump’s request for “loyalty’’ at a Jan. 27 dinner and a separate effort to press the director to drop the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn at a Feb. 14 White House meeting as particularly troubling.

“I do want to emphasize what is happening here,’” Warner said in a statement Thursday. “The president of the United States is asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation into the president’s former National Security Advisor.”

“In further violation of clear guidelines put in place after Watergate to prevent any whiff of political interference by the White House into FBI investigations, the president then called the FBI director on two separate occasions (March 30 and April 11) and asked him to ‘lift the cloud’ of the Russia investigation,” Warner said.

Comey’s testimony has become a huge political spectacle, attracting crowds at the Capitol and at bars showing the event live.

Spectators, most of them young congressional staffers, began lining up outside the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing room hours before the doors opened. Seven folding tables reserved spots for more than 100 reporters were positioned just behind the witness table.

Among the group of Comey supporters seated just behind the witness table was former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Earlier this year, Bharara was famously fired by Trump during an abrupt purge of top Justice  Department prosecutors.

Comey’s written testimony describes several different contacts he had with Trump, including a Jan. 27 dinner where he said the president told him, “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 of the exchange.

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Trump’s defenders pointed to Comey’s statement to underscore the president’s assertion that the former director had assured him that he wasn’t under investigation as part of the Russia probe.

Comey’s statement says that he told Trump at their first meeting on Jan. 6 in New York City that the FBI wasn’t investigating him personally.

“Prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him,” Comey said in his statement. “We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.”

Trump’s lawyer said that was a public acknowledgement that Trump “was not under investigation in any Russian probe.”

“The President feels completely and totally vindicated,” Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz said in a written statement Wednesday. “He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.”