Comey to speak at CNN town hall two years after Trump fired him

CNN's Anderson Cooper will moderate the town hall, which will kick off at 8 p.m. ET in Washington, DC.

Comey previously called for giving Attorney General William Barr "the benefit of the doubt" on how transparent the attorney general would be in publishing the Mueller investigation's findings. But in an op-ed published after the release of the report -- which revealed that Mueller was unable to conclude 'no criminal conduct occurred' on obstruction -- Comey wrote that Trump appointees such as Barr sometimes make "compromises" to survive their boss, adding that "Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites."

Comey and Trump had a famously tumultuous relationship. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, which the White House initially asserted was based solely on Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server.

But the purported circumstances behind Comey's firing shifted, with White House sources telling CNN that Trump had been mulling Comey's firing for at least a week. The next day, Trump said he had fired Comey "because he wasn't doing a good job." Two days later, Trump told NBC's Lester Holt that he was considering "this Russia thing" when he moved to fire Comey.

Comey's dismissal ultimately led Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to continue the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Comey testified to Congress later that summer that Trump had demanded "loyalty" from him and asked him to drop the investigation into former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017 and opted to cooperate with Mueller.

Comey's account of his exchanges with Trump had a noted impact on Mueller's investigation. CNN reported Tuesday that Mueller's team didn't want Comey's memos released for fear that Trump and other witnesses could change their stories after reading Comey's version of events.

CNN's Kate Sullivan, Eli Watkins, Jeremy Herb, Laura Jarrett, Stephen Collinson, Jeff Zeleny, Jeremy Diamond, Allie Malloy, James Griffiths, Tom LoBianco, Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez, and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

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