"I want to welcome Foreign Minister Lavrov to the State Department and express my appreciation for him making the trip to Washington so that we can continue our dialogue and our exchange of views that began in Moscow with the dialogue he hosted on a very broad range of topics," Tillerson said.
This was the first public appearance of the two leaders who held talks on issues like Syria and Ukraine.
Peppered with questions on Comey's firing during his brief media interaction at the State Department, Lavrov joked around.
"Does the Comey firing cast a shadow of your talks, gentlemen?" a reported asked.
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"Was he fired?" Lavrov questioned.
"Yes", the reporter responded.
"You are kidding. You are kidding," replied Lavrov.
Trump welcomed Lavrov to the White House marking his highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since taking office.
The two leaders held discussions at the Oval Office on a host of issues and the US president described his meeting with Lavrov as "very, very good".
"I think that we are going to do very well with respect to Syria, I think things are happening - they are really, really, really positive," Trump said.
About Comey's sacking, Trump said the FBI chief "was not doing a good job".
Lavrov said Trump was seeking "mutually beneficial" and "pragmatic" relations with Russia,
"President Trump clearly confirmed his interest in building mutually beneficial, business-like pragmatic relations," he said.
An angry Opposition has called for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate into the alleged Russian influence in last year's general elections.
"Today we'll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done to not only discover what the Russians may have done - also to let this body and the national security community develop countermeasures and warfighting doctrine to see that it doesn't occur again," McConnell said.
What everyone thinks of the manner in which Comey handled the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unauthorised use of a private server and her mishandling of classified information, it is clear what the Democrats thought of it, both at that time and consistently thereafter, McConnell said.
"And the prior Democratic leader, when asked if James Comey should resign given his conduct of the investigation, he replied, 'Of course. Yes. It's also clear what our Democratic colleagues think of the man who evaluated Mr Comey's professional conduct and concluded that the bureau needed a change in leadership," McConnell said.
Senate Minority Leader Senator Charles Schumer continued with his demand of appointing a special prosecutor.
"The dismissal of Director Comey establishes a very troubling pattern. This administration has now removed several law enforcement officials in a position to conduct independent investigations of the president and his administration, from Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to Preet Bharara, and now, Jim Comey," he said.
A special prosecutor is not subject to day-to-day supervision by the attorney general or anyone else at the Justice Department.
That means the special prosecutor would have much greater say in who he can subpoena, which questions they ask, how to conduct an investigation.
The appointment of a special prosecutor would be a welcome step in the right direction, but it is not the only action that should be taken.
"There are a great many outstanding questions about the circumstances of Director Comey's dismissal, the status of the executive branch investigation into the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and what the future holds for these investigations," Schumer said.