by WorldTribune Staff, August 6, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Soon after President Donald Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, the Bureau launched an investigation into whether Trump was a Russian asset, newly declassified documents show.
James Comey
Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017.
According to an FBI document dated May 16, 2017, the Bureau was opening an 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 goal of the investigation, which was code-named Oxferd Comma, “is 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 document states.
James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel at the time, and William Priestap, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence at the time, signed off on the investigation of Trump. Other top FBI officials, including acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, were aware of the investigation, according to the document and other papers.
The FBI’s investigation would also look into whether Trump and “others yet to be named” obstructed or conspired to obstruct any related FBI investigations, according to the document.
Comey was appointed by then-President Barack Obama, serving as FBI Director from 2013 to 2017. He oversaw the launch of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation in July 2016 after receiving information that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had suggested Russia possessed damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
In October 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham to review how the FBI had initiated the Russia investigation. In 2023, Durham concluded that the Bureau lacked sufficient factual basis to open the full Crossfire Hurricane investigation and exhibited bias by departing from its usual standards.
Documents from a declassified annex to Durham’s final report show that officials had concerns regarding Hillary Clinton’s campaign plan to smear then-candidate Trump by connecting him to Russia.
“Raising the theme of ‘Putin’s support for Trump’ to the level of the Olympics scandal would divert the constituents’ attention from the investigation of Clinton’s compromised electronic correspondence,” reads the annex.
Included in the annex is a 2016 letter from Leonard Benardo, who worked for the Soros-founded philanthropic network Open Society Foundations and had business in Moscow in the 1980s.
“Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire,” wrote Benardo.
The ‘Julie’ that Benardo references appears to be Clinton foreign policy advisor Julianne Smith, according to the report appendix.
