Good Wednesday morning, I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, sponsored by Samsung.

And I'm Jake Sherman. Well, the day is finally here. Today begins the most anticipated pair of congressional hearings in recent memory.

Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coates, a former senator will testify today and FBI director James Comey tomorrow.

There has been no shortage of news ahead of the

Comey and Coates hearings. Let's catch you up. What will most certainly come up today will be

reporting from the Washington Post that says the president asked Coates if he could intervene with

Comey on the FBI Russia probe. The Post reports that Coates discussed his conversation with the president

afterward and decided intervening with Comey would be inappropriate. Trump has certainly turned up the

heat on Attorney General Jeff Sessions lately, but our colleagues Tara Palmerry, Aliana Johnson,

and Josh Dossi report that Sessions actually offered his resignation to Trump before his trip abroad.

While Trump refused the offer, they report that the AG decided to offer his resignation because

he was aware how upset Trump was about his decision to recuse himself in the Russia probe.

And then we've got the main attraction this week, coming tomorrow with Comey's hearing starting at

10 a.m. And some news out of the New York

Times, Mike Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo are reporting that Comey told Sessions not to leave him alone

with Trump. Our own Josh Dossy scoops that Comey has talked to special counsel Robert Mueller

ahead of his testimony. Unsurprisingly, this White House is looking for ways to undermine Comey. The AP is reporting that they want to hammer Comey for his misstatements about Hillary Clinton's emails during his last Hill appearance, and the RNC have been prepping talking points. And we've got a few playbook scoops this morning. The tech world is sure to be interested in this one. The White House has been quietly working with the Justice Department

on overhauling the H-1B visa program to better adhere to the administrations by American,

higher-American order. Under consideration, forcing companies seeking employees under the H-1B visa

program to advertise the jobs online first and hire U.S. workers before foreigners. The Trump

administration is also discussing reducing the cap and duration for these visas, which wouldn't

effect make it more costly for companies to bring foreign workers from overseas. Other

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