Former FBI director James Comey had resisted the House Judiciary Committee’s initial call to testify. | Carsten Koall/Getty Images Congress Comey slated to testify on Capitol Hill on Friday

Former FBI Director James Comey will testify privately on Capitol Hill on Friday, after the resolution of a legal dispute over a Republican-initiated subpoena to compel him to appear, according to Comey’s attorney David Kelley and a House Judiciary Committee aide.

Comey fought the subpoena, issued by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), but abandoned the dispute after arranging a voluntary appearance — and a promise that a transcript of his interview would be released publicly after about 24 hours.


Comey had resisted the panel’s initial call to testify, arguing that long-running investigations by the GOP-led Judiciary and Oversight committees were really a politically driven effort to discredit the FBI and top officials involved in the probe of President Donald Trump’s campaign contacts with Russia.

The committees have been interviewing senior Justice Department and FBI officials privately, and several of the Republican panel members have cast the officials’ testimony as evidence of anti-Trump bias infecting the top levels of the bureau. Democrats involved in the interviews say the GOP effort is a smokescreen, an effort to discredit the FBI officials who launched the Russia investigation — now run by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Comey, who was fired by Trump last year and has testified publicly that Trump pressured him to back off the Russia investigation in early 2017, had refused to appear for a closed-door hearing with the House panels, suggesting other officials who had done so saw their comments distorted and leaked publicly. He instead demanded a public hearing, but Goodlatte rejected that.

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On Friday, Comey took his fight to federal court, where his attorneys argued that the Republican lawmakers running the investigation had overstepped their lawful authority and that a subpoena forcing the former FBI director to testify should be overturned. Lawyers for the House argued that Comey’s complaints were nonsensical and that Congress has broad latitude to compel witness testimony, even if the witnesses disagree with the conduct of those doing the investigation.

The Friday interview comes less than a month before Republicans relinquish control of the House to Democrats. A transcript of the interview is expected to be released on Saturday after a stenographer has time to complete it.

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