--- title: James Comey Testifies Before Senate: Watch Online description: FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing on FBI oversight canonical: https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-03T12:51:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:00:44.756Z article:section: Politics og:title: Watch Live: James Comey Testifies Before Senate og:description: The FBI director will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee og:url: https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bb1a5a50100f194/6988cbc82dce0148919ed50e/james-comey-senate-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: FBI Director Comey Discusses Counterterrorism And Cybersecurity At DC Dinner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Live: James Comey Testifies Before Senate twitter:description: The FBI director will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bb1a5a50100f194/6988cbc82dce0148919ed50e/james-comey-senate-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Live: James Comey Testifies Before the Senate > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=26917fe0-62ce-44e0-9aba-3dfe921fd7f0&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: FBI Director James Comey Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee [Watch (HLS stream): FBI Director James Comey Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/v3ZsGTIA.m3u8) (1:50)  _Published 2017-05-03. FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee._ by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 3, 2017 12:51 PM UTC by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 3, 2017 12:51 PM UTC FBI Director James Comey will testify before the [Senate Judiciary Committee](http://time.com/4723448/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-vote-senate/) in a hearing on FBI oversight on Wednesday, one day after both President Donald Trump and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton criticized him. The hearing before the Judiciary Committee, which is slated to start around 10 a.m., will not directly deal with the FBI’s investigation of [potential coordination](http://time.com/4754803/donald-trump-russia-investigation-momentum/) between the Trump campaign and Russia, though senators plan to ask the FBI director about it, the Associated Press reports. Senators are also expected to ask Comey about his decision and timing in publicly announcing investigations, something that has made the director a controversial figure among Democrats and Republicans alike. Several Democrats, including Clinton, claim Comey’s public announcement in October that the bureau had [reopened its investigation into Clinton’s private email server](http://time.com/4550453/hillary-clinton-james-comey-fbi-emails/) cost her the election. “I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off,” Clinton [told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/02/politics/hillary-clinton-planned-parenthood-women-for-women/index.html) on Tuesday. Trump also [criticized Comey](http://time.com/4764639/donald-trump-james-comey-hillary-clinton/) on Tuesday for his role in the 2016 election. “FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!” the President [tweeted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/859601184285491201). “The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?” Watch the hearing live above. ## Transcript Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? Never. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Question two, relatively related, Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? No. Has any classified information relating to President Trump or his associates Been declassified and shared with the media >> Not to my knowledge. There have been a variety of leaks but leaks are always a problem but especially in the last three to six months. Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election. But honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. Everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to October 28th with me and stare at this, and tell me what you would do. Would you speak, or would you conceal? And I could be wrong, but we honestly made a decision between those two choices, that even in hindsight, and this has been one of the world's most painful experiences I would make that the same decision. I would not conceal that. On October 28 from the Congress and I sent a letter to Congress, by the way people forget this. I didn't make a public announcement. I sent a private letter to the chairs and the rankings of the Oversight Committees. Well, did you? I know it's a distinction without a difference in the world of leaks. But it was very important that I tell them Instead of concealing and reasonable people can disagree, but that's the reason I made that choice, and it was a hard choice. I still believe in retrospect, the right choice, as painful as this has been. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/"},"headline":"Watch Live: James Comey Testifies Before the Senate","datePublished":"2017-05-03T12:51:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-08T09:00:44.756Z","description":"The FBI director will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee","url":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/","keywords":["Congress","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bb1a5a50100f194/6988cbc82dce0148919ed50e/james-comey-senate-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bb1a5a50100f194/6988cbc82dce0148919ed50e/james-comey-senate-hearing.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FBI Director Comey Discusses Counterterrorism And Cybersecurity At DC Dinner","caption":"FBI Director Comey Discusses Counterterrorism And Cybersecurity At DC Dinner","creditText":"Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/","name":"Watch Live: James Comey Testifies Before the Senate"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"FBI Director James Comey Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee","description":"FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/v3ZsGTIA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-05-03T16:43:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/v3ZsGTIA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/","duration":"PT1M50S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4764715/james-comey-senate-hearing-russia-trump-clinton/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```