For years, Democrats and their media allies swore up and down that the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump was a serious national security investigation, launched only because of grave concerns about Russian collusion. Newly declassified FBI records tell a different story. It turns out that the bureau formally opened its full counterintelligence investigation into Trump back in 2017, and used his firing of FBI Director James Comey as the justification.
The president exercised his constitutional authority to fire an FBI director, and the FBI responded by opening a counterintelligence investigation into him.
The key document is a declassified FBI "Opening Electronic Communication," dated May 16, 2017, exactly one week after Trump fired Comey on May 9. It authorized a full investigation into the sitting president of the United States under the codename "Oxferd Comma." No, that's not a typo. Don’t ask me why it’s spelled that way.
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: This morning, the White House Government Transparency Task Force released newly declassified documents exposing an FBI criminal investigation code-named Oxferd Comma. The documents can be downloaded here. https://t.co/8l9NWPnCx0
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) August 5, 2026
"The FBI is 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 which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States," the document reads.
The stated goal was 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." The same document reveals that investigators were also examining Trump for possible obstruction of justice.
So what was the "articulable factual basis" for treating a duly elected president as a suspected Russian asset? Trump's conversations with Comey. The document claims Trump "sought Comey's personal loyalty" and "asked Comey to publicize the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation." It also states that Trump "asked Comey to do what he could to resolve the investigations."
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That's it. That's the smoking gun. A president asked why the FBI wouldn't publicly admit what it privately told him, that he wasn't under investigation, and the bureau treated the question as evidence of a Kremlin conspiracy.
The document also argues that Trump's shifting explanations for firing Comey "can be reasonably read to imply that the FBI's counterintelligence investigation was a factor in President Trump's decision to terminate Comey." In other words, the FBI took a routine personnel decision, one Trump had every legal right to make, and spun it into proof that he was doing the bidding of Moscow. The memos show that both Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were advised that the probe had been launched.
The FBI's leadership was furious that Trump fired its director, so it retaliated by branding him a potential Russian agent. Naturally, Democrats ate all that up. The bureau didn't open the probe because of collusion evidence. There wasn't any. You know that. I know that. Even Democrats know it, but they pretend not to. Yet, we got years of breathless wall-to-wall coverage, endless Democrat fundraising emails, and a cloud over an entire presidency, all built on a document that cited a personnel decision as its foundation.
Russiagate hobbled Trump's first term, poisoned public trust, and gave the left its favorite conspiracy theory. Now we have the receipts showing how it started, and it’s just as bogus as anyone could have expected. Every official who signed off on this disgrace owes the American people an explanation, and the country owes Trump something it will probably never get from the Democrat Party or the press: an apology.
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