Seven days after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, the FBI opened a full counterintelligence investigation into the sitting President of the United States. The codename was "Oxferd Comma." The authorization memo, approved by FBI General Counsel James Baker and Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap, stated the bureau had "articulable factual basis" to believe Trump "may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation."
The investigation ran for nearly two years. It closed on April 9, 2019, having found nothing.
The newly released documents show the FBI's own personnel knew this before the ink was dry. Deputy Assistant Director Pete Strzok — the lead agent on the case — texted on May 19, 2017, just three days after Oxferd Comma opened: "I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."
The opening memo laid out what the FBI claimed to be investigating. Its 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." The predicate was the Comey firing. The memo argued that Trump's stated reasons for terminating Comey could be "reasonably read to imply that the FBI's counterintelligence investigation was a factor in President Trump's decision."
That's what passed for evidence. A reasonable reading of an implication.
Meanwhile, Special Agent William Barnett, who worked the case, told investigators he "still did not see any evidence of collusion between the TRUMP Campaign and the Russian Government." Barnett and other agents weren't just skeptical — they were openly mocking the investigation. According to Barnett's interview summary, agents joked about turning it into a board game they called "Collusion Clue," where "investigators are able to choose any character conducting any activity, in any location, and pair this individual with another character and interpret it as evidence of collusion."
The documents also reveal what the FBI already knew — and chose to ignore — before Oxferd Comma ever opened. The broader Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign had been built largely on the Steele dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. By February 2017, the FBI had interviewed Steele's primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, who undermined the dossier's key claims. The bureau's own analysis showed the dossier was unreliable.
Then there was retired General Mike Flynn, Trump's National Security Adviser, whose investigation the FBI had moved to close on January 4, 2017, after finding "no derogatory information." Internal notes from Priestap himself revealed the strategy: "What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" The investigation stayed open.
None of this happened in a vacuum. CIA Director John Brennan's own notes show that on August 3, 2016, he briefed President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Comey on intelligence indicating Hillary Clinton had "approved a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service." The CIA had a July 26, 2016 intercept documenting the plan.
The intelligence community knew Clinton's campaign was manufacturing the Russia narrative. They briefed the sitting president on it. And then the FBI used that same narrative to open an investigation into Clinton's opponent — first as a candidate, then as President.
Left-wing legal commentators have long defended the FBI's actions as standard counterintelligence procedure — the bureau simply following leads wherever they went. Which is an interesting way to describe an investigation whose lead agent doubted its basis on day three, whose line agents turned it into a punchline, and whose evidentiary foundation had been debunked by the FBI's own interviews months before it launched.
Special Counsel John Durham's report, released by the Biden Justice Department in 2023, confirmed the FBI never had adequate predication for Crossfire Hurricane. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, which absorbed Oxferd Comma, ended without establishing conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.