Mr. Trump has made it much harder to assert executive privilege by repeatedly<br />and publicly referring to his conversations with Mr. Comey, Mr. Rozell said.<br />director, James B. Comey, to testify next week about his conversations with President Trump, congressional officials said on<br />Wednesday, setting up a test of the White House’s willingness to cooperate with investigations into Mr. Trump’s associates.<br />Some in Congress have suggested that Mr. Trump was trying to obstruct the Justice Department investigation by demanding<br />Mr. Comey’s loyalty, asking him to drop the inquiry, and then firing him last month after being rebuffed.<br />Putting the highly anticipated hearing on the calendar would force Mr. Trump to decide<br />whether to invoke executive privilege and try to prevent Mr. Comey from testifying.<br />Mr. Trump, he said, “has not been careful.”<br />Several congressional committees want Mr. Comey to testify about his firing, but the former F. B.I.<br />Mr. Comey is expected to be asked about several conversations he had with the president, including one in which<br />he says Mr. Trump encouraged him to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.
