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President Donald Trump wanted to fire FBI Director James Comey long before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote a memo in support of his ouster, Rosenstein told senators on Thursday. The White House put Rosenstein at the center of the growing storm last week when it claimed his memo was the catalyst for the firing. But according to Rosenstein, while he supported Comey’s firing, his memo on Comey neither instigated his removal nor was meant to justify it.

Rosenstein’s side of the story—bits of it, at least—came out Thursday afternoon after he briefed the Senate on Comey’s firing, when senators summarized his testimony to reporters. On Friday, the Justice Department released some of Rosenstein’s remarks delivered to the senators. Those remarks verify some pieces of the emerging story around the firing and contradict the White House’s initial narrative.

According to Rosenstein, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interested in removing Comey even before he assumed that role. “In one of my first meetings with then-Senator Jeff Sessions last winter, we discussed the need for new leadership at the FBI,” Rosenstein told senators. One of Sessions’ main problems with Comey, Rosenstein’s remarks suggest, was that Comey was too independent of top Justice Department officials. “Among the concerns that I recall were to restore the credibility of the FBI, respect the established authority of the Department of Justice, limit public statements, and eliminate leaks,” he said.

Rosenstein went on to confirm that he heard about Comey’s impending removal on May 8, the day before it happened, and that Trump “sought my advice and input.” In response, Rosenstein drafted his memo that criticized Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email use. He sent that memo to Sessions the next afternoon—just a few hours before Comey’s firing was made public that evening. Trump has at various times since May 9 pinned the dismissal on Rosenstein and contradicted that line by saying was planning to fire Comey regardless of Rosenstein’s memo. But Rosenstein makes clear that the decision came from Trump, not him. “My memorandum is not a statement of reasons to justify for-cause termination,” he told senators. But he agreed with the decision, saying, “I thought it was appropriate to seek a new leader.”

Rosenstein also denied press reports that Comey had requested more resources for the investigation into Russian interference in the election prior to his firing. “I am not aware of any such request,” he told senators. “Moreover, I consulted my staff and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and none of them recalls such a request.”

Despite these revelations, Democratic senators left the briefing Thursday feeling that many of their questions about Comey’s dismissal had gone unanswered.

Here are the now-public portions of Rosenstein’s remarks: