WASHINGTON—So, James Comey asked the Senate Intelligence Committee and, through it, the nation, paraphrasing the old joke, who're you going to believe, me or your lying president*?

If there was a single theme running through Comey's much anticipated star turn in the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday, it was that, as far as Comey is concerned, nobody should buy an apple from the president*, who cannot be trusted as far as one can throw an over-leveraged Fifth Avenue skyscraper. Right from the very first minutes of the hearing, Comey was careful to call Donald Trump a liar every time the opportunity presented itself.

Comey eschewed the reading of the prepared statement that was released to the media on Wednesday in favor of beginning his appearance with a scathing denunciation of the president* who fired him, and who then proceeded to lie to the nation about why.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader...Those were lies plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI work force had to hear them and I am so sorry that the American people were told them."

He repeated on several occasions that he'd been fired because of his handling of the investigation of Russian ratfcking in the 2016 campaign. And, every time he was asked why he believed that, Comey replied that he was "taking the president at his word." This is twisting the spear with a deft and practiced hand.

It was a singularly powerful performance, made more so by the fact that Comey is very close to the perfect congressional witness—stolid and relaxed, relentlessly on point, in command of the facts and of his testimony, and not willing to be baited into going a step beyond what he wanted to say.

(The only real break in the proceedings came when Comey was being questioned by Angus King, Independent of Maine, about Trump's suggestion that he "hoped" Comey would let up on Michael Flynn, and Comey said it reminded him of Henry II's suggestion concerning Thomas a Becket: "Will nobody rid me of this meddlesome priest." Comey didn't get halfway through the quote before King not only joined in, but also supplied the date of Becket's murder. This may have been the nerdiest moment in American politics since Henry Wallace wandered into theosophy. House of Plantagenet, represent!)

Comey also shrewdly used the fact that he would be testifying in closed session later in the day to his advantage. He said that he would not discuss either the famous Steele dossier or the involvement of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III in public, leaving hanging the intriguing possibility that he had something to say behind the closed committee room doors. I'm just guessing, but I'd say old JeffBo ought to retain counsel pretty quickly.

Getty Images

There were very few eureka moments in Comey's testimony. The closest we came to one was Comey's admission that he had arranged the leak of one of his memos concerning a meeting with the president* in the hopes that its publication would result in the appointment of a special prosecutor, which eventually happened. (Comey also said that Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was appointed, has copies of all of Comey's memos.) This, of course, is further proof that James Comey is quite the instinctive bureaucratic gut-fighter.

For their part, the Republicans on the committee never strayed far from the club car of the Trump Train. Almost all of them, but Marco Rubio especially, insisted on asking Comey why, if he thought what the president* said about the Flynn situation was so dubious, Comey hadn't reported it to the attorney general or to anyone else at the Justice Department. This gave Comey endless chances to aw-shucks his way past the point of the question, and then talk again about how dangerously inappropriate the president*'s request had been.

For his part, Jim Risch of Idaho hung a great deal on hope. This is not a bad thing. We all should rely on hope. But, in this context, Risch was trying to get Comey to explain that, when the president* talked about letting up on Flynn, he was only hoping that Comey would do so. This soon spun into the absurd.

COMEY: I don't know well enough to answer. The reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction.

RISCH: Right.

COMEY: I mean, this is a President of the United States with me alone saying I hope this. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.

RISCH: You may have taken it as a direction but that's not what he said.

COMEY: Correct.

RISCH: He said, I hope.

COMEY: Those are his exact words, correct.

RISCH: You don't know of anyone ever being charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement?

COMEY: I don't as I sit here.

In other words, if one of the Piranha Brothers comes into your cheese shop and says, "Nice little shop you have here. Hope it never burns down," he likely is not suggesting that you buy more fire insurance. Alone, in the Oval Office, what any president says to an underling is very rarely a suggestion. This led Tom Cotton of Arkansas into the classic lawyer's trap of asking a question to which he did not already know the answer.

COTTON: Let's turn our attention to the underlying activity at issue here. Russia's hacking of those e-mails and the allegation of collusion. Do you think Donald Trump colluded with Russia?

COMEY: That's a question I don't think I should answer in an opening setting. As I said, when I left, we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump. But that's a question that will be answered by the investigation, I think.

Well, Senator, as long as you brought up collusion, what say we talk about it in secret, OK?

Compare that to the performance of King, who honed his questions finely and who never asked one to which he did not know the answer. (The Mustache of Righteousness has had a very good two days of hearings.) He laid out a litany of statements made by the president*, all of which can be charitably referred to as barefaced non-facts.

KING: With regard to the—several of these conversations, in his interview with Lester Holt on NBC, the president said, "I had dinner with him. He wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on." Is this an accurate statement?

COMEY: No, sir.

KING: Mr. Comey. In that same interview, the president said, "in one case I called him, and in one case, he called me." Is that an accurate statement?

COMEY: No.

KING: Did you ever call the president?

COMEY: No. I might—the only reason I'm hesitating is, I think there was at least one conversation where I was asked to call the White House switchboard to be connected to him. I never initiated a communication with the president.

KING: In his press conference may 18th, the president responded, quote, "No, no," when asked about asking you to stop the investigation into General Flynn. Is that a true statement?

COMEY: I don't believe it is.

KING: In regard to him being personally under investigation, does that mean that the dossier is not being reviewed or investigated or followed up on in any way?

COMEY: I obviously can't comment either way. I talk in an open setting about the investigation as it was when I was head of the FBI. It is Bob Mueller's responsibility now. I don't know.

Thus did King lead Comey back to the main theme of the day—namely, that the truth is not in this president nor is it likely to descend upon his shoulders any time soon. Then King managed to raise The Dossier—nudge, nudge, wink, wink—in such a way to Comey that the latter produced what can fairly be characterized as a pregnant no-comment.

In one sense, the release of Comey's opening statement on Wednesday, while serving his purposes admirably, sucked some of the drama out of Thursday's proceedings. But, taken as a whole, the two days represent a powerful indictment of a renegade and corrupt presidency of which we do not yet know the worst. That's going to be discussed only in private, for now, anyway.

Editor's Note: This post has been updated to reflect that Angus King is an Independent, not a Republican.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io