The FBI probed whether President Donald Trump fired the agency’s director at the behest of Russia, according to documents declassified by a White House task force on Aug. 5.
Trump fired James Comey, the FBI’s director, on May 9, 2017.
The FBI said in a document dated May 16, 2017, it 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 “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.
The investigation, codenamed Oxferd Comma, 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 fired after officials determined he mishandled a probe into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton using a personal server to send classified emails, including announcing without clearance from the attorney general that the case should be closed without prosecution, according to a memorandum from then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to the attorney general that was later made public. Trump said that when he fired Comey, it was due to mishandling the probe of Clinton, who ran against Trump in the 2016 election.
The document opening the probe said that Trump’s rationale for firing Comey “has changed over time.”
While Trump initially in public attributed the decision to conclusions from Rosenstein and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the White House said in a statement that the firing had “nothing to do with Russia,” Trump said in a television interview several days later that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the recommendation from Department of Justice officials because “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.”
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 probe, and other top FBI officials, such as acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, were aware of the investigation, according to the document and other papers.
The White House Government Transparency Task Force declassified and released the documents.
Trump created the task force in May to advise him on documents “that should be declassified and/or released to the public to further his administration’s priorities of transparency and accountability,” according to a July 13 statement from the task force.
John Solomon, chairman of the task force, said in a statement released by the White House that evidence when the investigation was opened already undercut suspicions that Trump was acting as a Russian asset, including testimony from FBI special agent William Barnett.
The White House declined to comment.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The probe into Trump’s termination of Comey was closed on April 9, 2019, after special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that there was no evidence to support claims that Trump and his campaign colluded or coordinated with Russia.
“The Special Counsel provided the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining his prosecution and declination decisions,” the document outlining the closing of the investigation reads.
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