(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Newly declassified files show that the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the fringe theory that President Donald Trump may have acted as a Russian agent shortly after he fired then-FBI Director James Comey.
The files, released by the White House on Wednesday, once again expose the aggressive steps the bureau took against Trump after he was sworn into office in 2017.
According to the files, the Trump-targeted probe, code-named “Oxferd Comma,” was launched within days of Trump’s dismissal of Comey on May 9, 2017.
The investigation appeared to lay the groundwork for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, which overshadowed much of Trump’s first two years in office despite ultimately finding no criminal conspiracy.
According to the White House, the investigation was approved by then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and then-Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap.
Other documents also indicate that then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were aware of the probe.
One of the files reviewed by Headline USA was prepared by the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
According to the file, the FBI asserted it had launched the probe based on “an articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates” that Trump “may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States.”
The document states the bureau sought to determine whether Trump “is or was directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation in a manner constituting a threat to the national security of the United States and/or a violation of federal criminal statutes.”
The investigation also sought to determine whether Trump and “others yet to be named obstructed and/or conspiracy [sic] to obstruct any associated FBI investigation.”
The newly released records add to a growing list of government files showing how Trump’s own federal government directly undermined his 2016 mandate.
Special Counsel John Durham, appointed in the last months of Trump’s first term, ultimately found that the FBI had little factual basis to open Crossfire Hurricane, which ran parallel to Oxferd Comma.
The Oxferd Comma investigation was ultimately closed on April 9, 2019, according to the White House. Mueller concluded his investigation less than three weeks earlier, on March 22, 2019.
The White House released the files in coordination with journalist John Solomon, who serves as chairman of the White House Government Transparency Task Force. He is currently on leave from his position as editor-in-chief of Just the News.
