Later on Wednesday, Vice President Pence said the same. “The president’s decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI was based solely and exclusively on his commitment to the best interests of the American people and to ensuring that the FBI has the trust and confidence of the people this nation,” he said.

In conversation with Holt, however, Trump contradicted Pence and Sanders’s explanations for Comey’s dismissal, saying his decision was made before he received the memo.

“He's a showboat, he’s a grandstander, the FBI has been in turmoil,” Trump said of Comey.

The president also insisted that Comey had told him on three separate occasions that he was not personally under investigation by the FBI, reprising an assertion he made in his letter to Comey. “While I appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,” Trump wrote.

Trump narrated those three occasions to Holt. The first came at a dinner between the two men in which Trump said Comey seemed to be trying to keep his job, in the face of Trump’s public criticism.

“I had dinner with him,” Trump said. “He wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on … Dinner was arranged. I think he asked for the dinner. And he wanted to stay on as the FBI head, and I said, ‘I'll consider it. We'll see what happens.’ But we had a very nice dinner, and at that time he told me you are not under investigation.”

Trump acknowledged that Comey has said the FBI is investigating links between his campaign and Russia, but said he was not personally involved, and that Comey had reiterated that in two separate phone calls. “In one case I called him and one case he called me,” the president said.

It is impossible to verify Trump’s account, because Comey has not spoken publicly. Trump’s account suggest a perhaps uncomfortable dynamic of a man seeking to keep his job tells his boss that the boss isn’t under investigation. Senator Charles Grassley also implied during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today that Comey had told him Trump was not personally under investigation.

Nonetheless, the central role of the Russia probe in Comey’s firing, while apparent from the start, is beginning to come into sharper focus. The White House’s initial explanation for the firing—that Comey had been too harsh in his handling of Hillary Clinton—made little sense, particularly since Trump had previously said he was too lenient.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico all report that Trump was upset about Comey’s announcement, during a March hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, that the FBI was investigating ties between the campaign and Russia. He was also infuriated by Comey’s assertion during that hearing that Trump’s evidence-free accusation that Barack Obama had “wiretapped” him was, in fact, without evidence. Trump was upset that Comey was not giving more attention to leaks to the press.