Nine years after President Trump fired James Comey, the FBI’s own declassified files have revealed what happened inside the bureau almost immediately afterward.

Agents went far beyond examining whether the firing obstructed an existing investigation.

They opened a sensitive full investigation into whether the sitting president was acting for Russia.

The case had a name: OXFERD COMMA.

The opening document was dated May 16, 2017—one week after Comey’s dismissal—and approved by then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and Counterintelligence Division chief E.W. Priestap.

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News of the declassification broke hard Wednesday morning:

The FBI Opened A Full Investigation Into The President

The FBI’s OXFERD COMMA opening communication identifies the case as a Foreign Agents Registration Act matter involving Russia and marks it as a “Sensitive Investigative Matter.” It records that a full investigation was initiated on May 16, 2017.

The bureau said it had an “articulable factual basis” to investigate whether President Trump had been involved, knowingly or unknowingly, in activities for or on behalf of the Russian government that could violate federal law or threaten national security.

The stated goal went further. Investigators sought to determine whether Trump was directed or controlled by Russia, or had coordinated activities with Moscow.

They also set out to examine whether the president or unnamed others had obstructed—or conspired to obstruct—an FBI investigation.

That is the extraordinary heart of this release.

The FBI transformed a constitutional act by the elected president—the removal of the FBI director—into the trigger for an investigation asking whether the commander in chief was a Russian asset.

McCabe Briefed Rosenstein The Same Day

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The FBI’s notification record shows this was not an isolated theory floating around a field office.

At approximately 12:30 p.m. on May 16, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe personally notified Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that the bureau had opened OXFERD COMMA. The memo says the in-person briefing satisfied the notification requirements for the sensitive case.

The record is dated May 17 but memorializes the briefing from the previous day. It carries the same OXFERD COMMA case identifier, labels the matter as a Foreign Agents Registration Act investigation involving Russia, and again marks it as sensitive.

Its synopsis is blunt: document the Justice Department notification. In other words, the bureau created a formal paper trail showing that one of the highest-ranking officials at the FBI had taken the newly opened investigation directly to the deputy attorney general.

The next day, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.

The case file therefore places a remarkable sequence on paper: OXFERD COMMA opened on May 16, McCabe briefed Rosenstein that day, and Mueller received his appointment on May 17.

A second widely shared post highlighted exactly how sweeping the FBI’s theory had become:

OXFERD COMMA Was Folded Into Mueller’s Investigation

The FBI’s closing communication says responsibility for OXFERD COMMA was transferred to FBI personnel assisting Mueller after the special counsel’s appointment.

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The closing record states that the investigation used FBI resources and personnel under Mueller’s jurisdiction. It notes that all leads were covered or discontinued and that evidence would be stored under FBI policy.

After Mueller delivered his confidential report to the attorney general on March 22, 2019, the bureau closed OXFERD COMMA with an administrative closing status. The closing communication itself is dated April 8, 2019.

Mueller’s final report did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. OXFERD COMMA’s central suspicion ended without the finding that would have justified the political nightmare it helped unleash.

What The New Files Prove—And What They Do Not

The documents prove that the FBI formally investigated an astonishing possibility: that President Trump may have fired Comey while acting for Russia.

They prove the case was opened as a sensitive full investigation, that senior FBI officials approved it, that McCabe notified Rosenstein, and that the matter moved into Mueller’s operation.

The release does not, by itself, prove that the officials who opened the case committed a criminal conspiracy. That is a separate legal allegation requiring evidence of an agreement and criminal intent.

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But the civil-liberties question is now impossible to wave away. Americans can read the bureau’s own paperwork and ask whether the evidence justified aiming the most powerful investigative machinery in the country directly at a sitting president.

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CBS News says an administration official argued that nearly everything in the FBI’s possession by that stage had already undercut or ruled out collusion between Trump or his campaign and Russia. CBS also reported that OXFERD COMMA became part of Mueller’s broader investigation and was later closed without establishing the suspected Trump-Russia conspiracy.

That makes the timing even harder to ignore.

The FBI opened this case after the president exercised his authority to fire its director. Senior officials then moved with startling speed, treating the decision itself as a possible sign that the president answered to a hostile foreign power.

For years, Americans were told the extraordinary investigation was justified by extraordinary facts. These declassified files finally let the public see the extraordinary theory that agents wrote down—and the result it ultimately produced.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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