Declassified: FBI Opened Full Probe Into Trump Days After He Fired Comey

Summary:

Declassified FBI memoranda released by the White House on 5 August 2026 show that the bureau opened a full investigation into President Donald Trump on 16 May 2017, seven days after he fired FBI Director James Comey. Codename Oxferd Comma, the probe examined whether Trump had acted as a Russian asset in dismissing Comey.

The investigation grew out of the broader FBI inquiry known as Crossfire Hurricane, which had been opened in 2016 to examine possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government — allegations that became widely known as the “Russia collusion” narrative. By May 2017, senior FBI personnel had already assessed that theory as lacking substance. The Steele dossier, a collection of reports funded by the Clinton campaign that had helped sustain the inquiry, had largely failed internal corroboration. Nevertheless, the FBI opened a formal investigation into whether the President himself was working for a foreign power.

The investigation was later closed with no charges. Special Counsel John Durham subsequently found that Crossfire Hurricane had itself been opened without an adequate predicate. The newly released documents also sit against intelligence received by the FBI in 2016 concerning a possible Clinton campaign plan to deliberately link Trump to Russia as a political strategy — intelligence the bureau treated with greater scepticism than the information used to open Crossfire Hurricane.

Detailed Report

1. White House Releases Declassified FBI Memos Revealing Secret Trump Probe

On 5 August 2026 the White House Government Transparency Task Force released a package of newly declassified FBI internal memoranda. The documents include the 16 May 2017 Electronic Communication that opened the Oxferd Comma investigation, the notification to the Department of Justice, the April 2019 closing communication, and related materials drawn from the Durham Classified Appendix concerning intelligence on a possible Clinton campaign plan. Together they establish that the FBI opened a full criminal and counterintelligence investigation into a sitting president under the theory that his decision to fire the FBI Director may have been directed or controlled by the Russian Federation.

The publicly stated reason for the dismissal was later supported by internal reviews. The Department of Justice concluded he had mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the department’s independent inspector general subsequently found that Comey had “violated long-standing department practice and protocol” in that case.

The release comes as federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Florida, examine whether the FBI, the Department of Justice and intelligence agencies engaged in a pattern of investigations that violated the civil rights of Trump and his associates.

2. Oxferd Comma: FBI Opens Full Investigation into Trump as Possible Russian Asset

The opening Electronic Communication, dated 16 May 2017 and approved by FBI General Counsel James A. Baker and Assistant Director for Counterintelligence E.W. Priestap, states that the bureau was opening a full investigation “based on an articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald J. Trump may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation.” The stated goals were to determine whether Trump was “directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with” the Russian Federation, and whether he or others had obstructed the existing Russia investigation.

The investigation was designated a Sensitive Investigative Matter. Both Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were advised that the probe had been launched. Oxferd Comma was later transferred to the Special Counsel’s Office after Robert Mueller’s appointment on 17 May 2017.

3. Internal Doubts: The Bureau Opened the Case Against Its Own Assessments

By the time Oxferd Comma was opened, key FBI personnel working the Russia investigation had concluded that the collusion theory lacked substance. Special Agent William Barnett, case agent on the Flynn and Manafort investigations, described the Crossfire Hurricane theory as “supposition on supposition” and said he saw “no evidence of collusion between the TRUMP Campaign and the Russian Government.” He characterised the Flynn collusion theory as a “dumb theory” that “did not make sense” and told colleagues the investigation was “not there.” Barnett and others referred to the exercise as a game of “Collusion Clue,” in which any person, activity or location could be paired and interpreted as evidence of collusion.

By early January 2017 the bureau had already cleared Michael Flynn of wrongdoing in the Russia investigation. A 4 January 2017 FBI memorandum stated that “no derogatory information was reported back to the FBI.” The same pattern of pursuing a case after internal assessments found little substance appeared in his subsequent treatment: agents invited Flynn for an interview and later charged him with making false statements. The conduct concerned some within the bureau, including Assistant Director for Counterintelligence E.W. Priestap, who wrote at the time: “What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

Those reservations were not confined to Barnett or Priestap. Three days after Oxferd Comma was opened, FBI Deputy Assistant Director Pete Strzok texted Lisa Page: "I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."

4. Background: Crossfire Hurricane Opened on Uncorroborated Intelligence

To understand why those internal doubts carried such weight, it is necessary to return to the investigation's origins. Crossfire Hurricane was opened on 31 July 2016 as a full counterintelligence investigation to determine whether individuals associated with the Trump campaign were coordinating with the Russian government. The predicate was information received from Australian diplomats concerning George Papadopoulos, a low-level foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

According to the Australian reporting, Papadopoulos had told an Australian diplomat in May 2016 that Russia had indicated it could assist the Trump campaign by releasing information damaging to Hillary Clinton. The information was passed to the FBI in late July 2016. Special Counsel John Durham, appointed years later to examine the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation, concluded that this information was “raw, unanalysed, and uncorroborated” and did not meet the standard required under the Attorney General’s Guidelines to open a full investigation. Durham noted that the FBI applied a markedly lower level of analytical scrutiny to the Papadopoulos information than it applied to other intelligence received at the same time.

5. Background: Steele Dossier Becomes Central Pillar Despite Reliability Failures

The Steele dossier — a series of reports compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee — subsequently became a central pillar of the inquiry. Its reports alleged a coordinated conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. The FBI used the dossier to support applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. FISA allows the government to obtain warrants for certain national-security surveillance. By January 2017 the FBI already had serious questions about the reliability of the Steele reporting. When the primary sub-source was interviewed in February, he described much of the information as rumour and hearsay. Durham later found that the dossier’s core allegations were never corroborated, and that material adverse to its reliability was withheld from the court that authorises such warrants.

6. Two Standards of Scepticism: The Clinton Intelligence the FBI Set Aside

If the Papadopoulos tip and the Steele dossier show how readily the bureau acted on thin material, a third strand of 2016 intelligence shows the opposite instinct. The political environment in which these investigations were opened included intelligence received by the FBI in 2016 concerning a possible Clinton campaign plan to deliberately link Trump to Russia. This material appears in the Classified Appendix to Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, a previously restricted section that examined intelligence the FBI received but did not fully pursue.

The appendix details translated memoranda and purported emails attributed to individuals associated with the Open Society Foundations, the network of philanthropic organisations founded by financier George Soros. A late July 2016 memorandum alleged that on 26 July 2016 Clinton approved a plan proposed by foreign policy advisor Julianne Smith “to smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion by the Russian special services.” That intrusion refers to the Russian intelligence hacking of Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails in 2015–2016, which were later released publicly through WikiLeaks and the site DCLeaks. Related emails referred to a “long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump” and to the FBI later “put[ting] more oil into the fire.”

CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director Comey on this intelligence on 3 August 2016. The FBI assessed the early material as likely not credible and did not pursue it as a potential predicate for an investigation into the Clinton campaign. Durham noted that the bureau applied a higher level of scepticism to this intelligence than it applied to the Papadopoulos information used to open Crossfire Hurricane. In short, the same bureau that opened a full investigation on the uncorroborated Papadopoulos tip declined to pursue intelligence of comparable rawness pointing in the other direction.

7. No Coordination, No Obstruction, No Predicate: The Case Collapses

Oxferd Comma was absorbed into the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller. The Mueller Report did not establish that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election-interference activities and did not recommend obstruction charges against Trump. The Oxferd Comma investigation itself was formally closed on 9 April 2019 with no charges arising from the predicate that Trump had acted as a Russian asset in firing Comey.

Durham’s 2023 report concluded that the FBI had lacked an adequate predicate to open Crossfire Hurricane in the first place and that the Department and the FBI “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

Conclusion

The declassified memoranda show that the FBI opened a full investigation into a sitting president on the theory that his dismissal of the FBI Director indicated he was acting for Russia. The investigation was launched after key bureau personnel had already assessed the Russian collusion theory as lacking substance, rested on an original predicate that Durham later found inadequate, and was closed without charges. The White House release presents the episode as part of a political operation that used unfounded allegations, amplified by extensive media coverage, to constrain the first Trump administration.