Who Is James Comey?

Less than a week after holding a press conference to announce that the agency would not recommend that the Justice Department file charges against Hillary Clinton in relation to her use of a private e-mail server to send classified information, Comey has been summoned to the Hill. He will testify on Thursday morning before a House Oversight Committee filled with Republican Congress members who are champing at the bit to rake Comey over the coals.

Comey may be raising the ire of Republicans now, but he was actually appointed to his first two government jobs by George W. Bush. He was named U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2002 and then named Deputy Attorney General in 2003. He left government service for the private sector, including some time at hedge fund Bridgewater before returning to DC when President Obama named him FBI director in 2013.

During his first tour of duty in Washington, Comey was intimately involved in another case involving confidential information — he chose his former colleague in the US Attorney’s office Patrick Fitzgerald to be the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. He was also involved in a bizarre incident in 2004 where Bush administration officials tried to get a sick John Ashcroft to reauthorize a domestic surveillance program, despite the fact that the powers of the Attorney General has been temporarily transferred to Comey.

Comey may be best known today for his involvement in the FBI‘s fight to get Apple to unlock the iPhone of the perpetrators of the San Bernadino terrorist attack. That became a major issue in the presidential race as candidates on both sides had to weigh in on issues of privacy and national security.

Comey was listed on Fortune‘s list of Worlds Greatest Leaders in 2015.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has said that while he has questions for Comey, he does not question his integrity.

The testimony is set to begin at 10 a.m. EDT on Thursday.