Thanks for the reply instead of the down-mod (I guess I got hit by a Trumper before the discussion could grow--must be because I forgot my usual disclaimer of being a lifelong Conservative [registered] Republican who just can't stand Trump).
Anyway, there is more than one message to take away from today's hearing. The biggest lessons didn't have anything to do with Comey, but for some reason this site has turned really conservative and let its newer bias write the headline. This place was very liberal when I was in high school and college. But I digress...
You might want to watch or read the testimony again. Trump did not handle things correctly after that first meeting. It was requested that all communication from the President go through the AG, yet Trump insisted on calling Comey more than once. He was clearly concerned with something about the investigation into Russia. It might be as insignificant as the optics*, it might be as substantial as worrying about getting caught for committing crimes in collusion w/ his underlings wrt Russia (not saying Trump did, but if he did that would be a big worry of his).
Trump has not been particularly professional in the President's Office. There have been some bright spots, for sure, like the State of the Union and the fact that he hasn't fiddled with the Football, but I have no doubts that Trump has been a serial liar when it comes to Comey. Trump is the one who looks bad if the truth comes out--he's the only one with motive to hide anything--so the Republicans had no alternate explanation for Comey's insistence that he was fired because of the FBI's investigation into Russia. There is no other reasonable explanation. That really is the #1 headline from the hearing today.
I totally agree about McCain. The guy needed to shut up. There was no double standard. Comey was investigating Russia wherever it led him. Comey also investigated Clinton for the email scandal. Sounds relatively non-partisan to me, but McCain couldn't coherently make his point that he thought the whole thing was "unfair".
*If it was just the optics, did he think firing the guy investigating would be GOOD for optics??