FBI opened investigation against Trump one week after Comey's firing

Declassified FBI memos reveal bureau opened probe into whether Trump was a Russian agent after Comey firing

The White House released declassified FBI documents showing the bureau launched a counterintelligence investigation into whether President Trump was acting as a Russian agent, a probe that produced no charges and that a later special counsel called deeply flawed.

Seven days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, senior bureau officials signed off on an investigation codenamed "Oxferd Comma." Its stated purpose: to determine whether the sitting president of the United States was "directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation." The investigation ran for nearly two years. It ended on April 9, 2019, with no charges filed against Trump.

The memos, released by the White House on Wednesday, lay bare the FBI's internal reasoning for opening the probe, and expose how quickly the bureau escalated its suspicions about a president who had exercised his lawful authority to remove a subordinate. FBI opened the probe one week after Comey's firing.

The May 16, 2017 memo that launched Oxferd Comma was approved by then-FBI General Counsel James A. Baker and Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the bureau's counterintelligence division. The memo framed the investigation as a national security matter, not merely a criminal one.

The document stated that the FBI sought to:

"determine if President 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"

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The bureau sits under the U.S. Department of Justice and answers directly to the Attorney General who was Jeff Sessions at that time. Jeff Sessions remained the U.S. Attorney General after FBI Director James Comey was fired on May 9, 2017.

Sessions did not lose his job at that time; (he was fired by Trump in 2018) rather, he had already recused himself from the Russia investigation, meaning Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took over specific supervisory oversight regarding Comey's replacement and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.