The White House has declassified documents revealing that the FBI secretly opened an investigation in 2017 into whether President Donald Trump was “wittingly or unwittingly” acting as a Russian intelligence asset.
The newly released records shed additional light on the extraordinary investigation launched during Trump’s first term and the FBI’s scrutiny of his decision to fire then-Director James Comey.
The investigation, given the unusual codename “Oxferd Comma,” was eventually closed in 2019 without substantiating that Trump was working as a Russian asset.
According to a May 16, 2017, document released by the White House, investigators examined whether Trump and other unidentified individuals had obstructed or conspired to obstruct an FBI investigation.
The filing referenced the bureau’s existing Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russian interference surrounding the 2016 presidential election as well as Trump’s firing of Comey earlier that month.
Investigators noted that Trump’s publicly stated reasoning for removing Comey had “changed over time.”
Trump initially pointed to Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
He subsequently discussed Russia while addressing the firing, describing “this Russia thing” as a “made up story.”
The FBI investigation sought to determine whether those circumstances indicated something more serious, including whether the president himself had a relationship with Russian intelligence.
More than nine years later, the documents surrounding that investigation have now been made public.
John Solomon, chairman of the White House Government Transparency Task Force, blasted the investigation in a statement accompanying the release.
“It prompted the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller…and a nearly two-year probe that hampered the start of the Trump presidency even though Mueller’s team, like the FBI before it, was unable to substantiate any collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election,” Solomon wrote.
The FBI under its current leadership also condemned the bureau’s previous handling of Trump-related investigations.
“The weaponization that occurred against President Trump under prior regimes was inexcusable and wholly un-American,” FBI Office of Public Affairs Assistant Director Ben Williamson told The Independent.
Williamson pointed to FBI Director Kash Patel’s previous work investigating Crossfire Hurricane and said Patel has released more than 40,000 pages of documents concerning alleged misconduct by former FBI leadership.
The “Oxferd Comma” investigation was ultimately closed in early 2019 around the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation.
Mueller’s investigation documented numerous contacts between Russia-linked individuals and people associated with the Trump campaign.
However, Mueller’s report did not establish that members of the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
The origins and handling of the Russia investigation subsequently became the subject of another special counsel investigation.
Special Counsel John Durham was appointed to investigate how federal authorities handled the Trump-Russia inquiry.
Durham’s 2023 report sharply criticized aspects of the FBI’s work, including what he described as a “lack of analytical rigor” in its examination of Trump’s potential connections to Russia.
Durham did not, however, recommend “wholesale changes” to the FBI.
The declassification brings renewed attention to Comey’s role in one of the most politically explosive periods of Trump’s first presidency, according to The Independent.
Comey was leading the FBI when Trump fired him in May 2017.
The former FBI director later became an outspoken Trump critic, and tensions between the two have continued throughout Trump’s return to the White House.
The Justice Department has more recently scrutinized a controversial social media post from Comey featuring seashells arranged to display “86 47.”
The number 47 was widely interpreted as referring to Trump, the 47th president, while “86” can be slang for removing something and has sometimes been interpreted as carrying violent implications.
Comey apologized for the post and said he had not been aware that the phrase could be interpreted as advocating violence.
His attorneys have accused the Trump administration of pursuing a “vindictive and selective prosecution.”
The newly declassified records now provide another window into the origins of the yearslong political and legal battle surrounding Trump, Russia and the FBI.
They establish that federal investigators went as far as examining whether the sitting president could have been knowingly or unknowingly operating as a Russian intelligence asset.
But the investigation was eventually dropped in 2019, and the broader Mueller investigation did not establish that Trump’s campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
