From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.

Today, James Comey explains his memos. The former FBI director goes before the Senate Intelligence Committee today to talk about that meeting in the Oval Office.

The request to call off the investigation into Michael Flynn and what President Trump might have met when he said

we had that thing you know. And why would ISIS be targeting Iran? It's Thursday, June 8th.

This is how it starts. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President elect and President Trump

on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail for my conversations with the President,

but to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the committee.

So that's the start of what, Mike Schmidt. It's the start of a seven page opening statement that James Comey will be giving on Thursday that lays out the intricacies, the subtleties,

and the back and forth that he had with Donald Trump when Comey was the FBI director.

Why release the testimony in advance, a full day in advance of the actual appearance?

I don't know, but it's certainly made writing about the testimony with that would happen easier.

Perhaps to, I don't know, stoke more interested in it. I'm not sure, but it certainly gives us a preview of what we're going to see.

So I want to remind listeners of your role in all of this. You first reported on the existence of memos written by James Comey and some of the details of those memos,

which I believe were read to you by people who had access to them.

Right? Yes. I've written four stories over the past month about Trump's interactions with Comey and how Comey memorialized them in memos.

As a reporter, when this came out, my first instinct is get it, read it, how does it line up with my reporting?

And how did it line up? The actual test lined up very well. And that's the best feeling you can have as a reporter because it ensures the accuracy of the content that you've put out.

So what's in the testimonies? And I guess, therefore, what was in the memos that you hadn't seen that struck you?

There's two things about the statement that stood out at me. The first was sort of how wide ranging Trump's efforts were to win over Comey and influence him.

How Trump never really gave up on trying to get Comey to put out word that he was not under federal investigation.

And specifically why Comey didn't want to do that? Because what Comey's concern was was that if he put out word that Trump wasn't under investigation, as he was not under investigation, what if Trump did become underinvested?

Interesting. Would Comey have to hold a press conference or put out a statement to say that he was?

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