James Comey, the FBI director President Donald Trump fired in what may have been an attempt to stop an investigation into White House officials, is testifying before Congress this week — speaking on the matter publicly for the first time since he left his position.

Update: Read James Comey's prepared testimony for Thursday's hearing

Comey accepted an invitation to testify in a public session of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, June 8, at 10 am Eastern time. The testimony will be followed by a private closed-door committee session with Comey the same day.

The mounting Russia-related scandals have put pressure on congressional Republicans to investigate possible ties between Trump's campaign and the White House — and any attempts the president may have made to curb federal investigations into his team. Comey's testimony is a major step in those probes, and will undoubtedly be a historic media moment.

The hearing will be aired on C-SPAN, and will be streamed online on other news outlets, like PBS.

"The Committee looks forward to receiving testimony from the former Director on his role in the development of the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, and I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media," Intelligence Chair Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said in a statement in late May.

The Senate Intelligence Committee sent Comey a letter asking him to testify in front of both open and closed sessions of the committee in May. Another letter from the Senate committee, which is co-chaired by Burr and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), asked acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for all "notes or memorandum" Comey may have left about conversations with the White House over the FBI's Russia investigation.