WASHINGTON — Former FBI director James B. Comey is expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next Thursday, the panel said Thursday.

Comey’s appearance before the committee has been in the works for some time, but an exact date and time had not previously been set. The committee said Comey would testify in a public setting starting at 10 a.m., June 8, and a closed session would follow beginning at 1 p.m.

The hearing is sure to be explosive. Earlier this month, President Trump suddenly fired Comey amid an FBI investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election.

While the Trump administration said the firing was over Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, the president has said the Russia probe was on his mind when he removed his FBI director — who is appointed to a 10-year term to avoid political influence.

Comey will almost certainly not be able to discuss details of the ongoing investigation, which is now being led by a special counsel.

He might, though, be able to talk about the details of his firing and other conversations he had with the president.

Comey wrote in private notes that Trump asked him to shut down the FBI’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and he also kept notes on a conversation in which he alleged Trump asked him for an affirmation of loyalty, people familiar with the documents have said.

Comey has reached an understanding with the special counsel’s office about what he can and cannot make public, people familiar with the matter have said.

Comey has a history of turning congressional testimony into must-watch TV: in 2007, he famously described to lawmakers of how he intervened in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to stop, at least for a while, the approval of a National Security Agency surveillance program that he believed to be unlawful.

His appearance comes just as the special counsel’s probe into Russian meddling in the election is heating up. In recent weeks and months, a grand jury has issued subpoenas to request records related to Flynn’s businesses, and investigators are now scrutinizing Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, for meetings he had with Russians in December.