Former FBI Director James Comey had a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday.

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey laid bare months of White House distrust, accusing the administration at an extraordinary open hearing of spreading “lies” and bluntly asserting that President Donald Trump had fired him to interfere with an investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.

At his first congressional appearance since his abrupt firing last month, Comey revealed that he’d orchestrated the public release of information about his private conversations with the president in an effort to further the investigation.

Comey’s testimony, at a hugely anticipated hearing that captured the country’s attention, provided a gripping account of his interactions with Trump and underscored the discord that had soured their relationship.

He portrayed Trump as a chief executive dismissive of the FBI’s independence and made clear that he interpreted Trump’s request to end an investigation into his former national security adviser as an order coming from the president.

Though Republicans worked to discredit Comey and to blunt the impact of his testimony, the ex-director’s statement deepened questions about the basis for his May 9 dismissal and about whether Trump’s actions constituted obstruction of justice. The veteran lawman expressed confidence that could be a matter ripe for investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, though he declined to offer an opinion on whether it met such a threshold.

Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Comey’s admission that he had told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation and maintained the testimony made clear that Trump “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.”

Kasowitz also jumped on Comey’s revelation that he had released details of his private conversations with the president, casting the former FBI director as one of the “leakers” set on undermining the Trump administration.

Still, there was no doubt the veteran lawman made for a challenging adversary.

“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey said toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. “I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

“That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.”