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James Comey weaves a sensational tale.
He uses words like awkward, uncomfortable, stunned, confused and concerning to describe his dealings with US President Donald Trump between early January and mid-April this year.
In part, he's angry. And at today's open hearing he spoke in defence of the FBI, which Mr Trump described as being in chaos and disarray when he sacked Mr Comey on May 9.
On that, Mr Comey accused the White House of lying.
"The administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly, the FBI by saying the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader," Mr Comey said.
"Those were lies plain and simple. And I'm so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and I'm so sorry the American people were told them."
Many of Mr Comey's conclusions and observations are based on instinct and an ingrained sense of protocol gained during a long career as a public servant, including as attorney-general and head of the FBI.
At the very least, it's an understanding of the lines of independence between the White House and the FBI that the President does not have, based on Mr Comey's notes.
At worst, it amounts to deliberate pressure from the President to drop an investigation into former national security chief Michael Flynn and to demand loyalty from the FBI chief so he could keep his job.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is going with the former.
"The President's new at this. He's new at government," Mr Ryan said.
"He's not steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ (Department of Justice), FBI and White Houses."
But Mr Comey implies a pattern of deliberate behaviour that's more than just tripping over boundaries.
After his first meeting with Mr Trump in January, the then-FBI chief was so rattled by the experience that he adopted an immediate policy of detailed note-taking after their conversations.
'I knew there might come a day when I would need a record'
He said the circumstances, the subject, the person, and the fact that they were alone compelled him to do so, but beyond that, a sense of unease.
"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting and so I thought it really important to document," Mr Comey said.
"That combination of things I'd never experienced before but it led me to believe that I got to write it down, and I got to write it down in a very detailed way.
"I knew that there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened — not just to defend myself — but to defend myself the FBI and our integrity as an institution".
That day is here, with the US President and the ex-FBI chief now at odds over what was said during their three face-to-face meetings and six phone conversations, particularly one on February 14.
"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," the US President allegedly said to the FBI director when they were alone in the Oval Office.
The comment came the day after Mr Flynn was ejected from his job as the national security director over conversations with the Russian ambassador. Mr Flynn was under criminal investigation due to suspicions that he had lied to FBI agents.
'Why did Trump kick everybody out of the Oval Office?'
Mr Comey wouldn't buy into whether it represented obstruction of justice, which would be the most dangerous for Mr Trump.
"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct," Mr Comey said.
"I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the Special Counsel will work towards to try to understand what the intention was there and whether that's an offence".
But he was brutally clear about his discomfort with the circumstances, alleging Mr Trump deliberately dismissed others from the office so they could have a private conversation.
"A really significant fact to me is — why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office?" Mr Comey said.
"Why would you kick the Attorney-General, the President Chief of Staff out, to talk to me if it was about something else?
"And so that to me, as an investigator, is a very significant fact."
Topics: world-politics, donald-trump, law-crime-and-justice, united-states
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