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New FBI docu-dump: ‘Oxferd Comma’ files expose extraordinary post-Comey probe of Trump

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DAILY BS BULLETIN

  • Declassified FBI memos reveal agents investigated whether Trump was acting for Russia when he fired James Comey in 2017.
  • The secret “Oxferd Comma” probe also examined obstruction, but it produced no charges and was absorbed into Robert Mueller’s investigation, which established no Trump-Russia coordination.

Newly declassified FBI memos reveal that the bureau opened a secret investigation into whether President Donald Trump was acting as a Russian asset—knowingly or unknowingly—when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.

The investigation carried the peculiar codename “Oxferd Comma,” apparently misspelling the university and possibly substituting a zero for the second “o” in “Comma.”

The White House published the documents through its Government Transparency Task Force, reviving questions about how the FBI escalated its Russia investigation from Trump campaign associates to the sitting president himself.

According to the May 16, 2017, opening document, agents believed there was an “articulable factual basis” for investigating whether Trump had acted for the Russian government.

“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.”

The memo described the investigation’s extraordinary objective:

“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.”

Agents were instructed to determine whether those alleged activities threatened national security or violated federal criminal law. The investigation would also examine whether Trump or unnamed associates obstructed an FBI investigation.

Opening an investigation did not establish that the allegation was true. “Oxferd Comma” ultimately produced no charges against Trump and was folded into special counsel Robert Mueller’s broader inquiry.

Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, four months into his first administration. The White House initially pointed to Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Trump later acknowledged that the Russia investigation was also on his mind when he made the decision.

During an NBC interview, Trump said:

“When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’”

The FBI memo argued that the evolving explanations for Comey’s dismissal could support an inference that the Russia investigation influenced the firing.

Investigators also cited information from Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s 2016 investigation into whether Trump campaign associates coordinated with Russia’s election-interference operation.

Other factors listed in the newly released documents included Trump’s interactions with Comey, campaign discussions about the Republican platform’s language on Ukraine, Trump business interests involving Russia and the firing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The investigation was designated a “sensitive investigative matter,” limiting internal knowledge of its existence. An administration official told CBS News that this classification was used to keep the case out of view from other agents and offices.

“I was unaware that the predicate for the obstruction included a claim that Donald Trump was somehow acting on behalf of Vladimir Putin.”

The official argued that the FBI already possessed substantial evidence undermining the theory that Trump or his campaign had coordinated with Russia.

“Almost everything in the FBI’s possession at that point had debunked or ruled out that Trump or his campaign was colluding with Russia.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel on May 17, 2017—the day after the “Oxferd Comma” opening memo was approved.

The secret case was then absorbed into Mueller’s investigation and closed along with it in 2019.

Mueller documented extensive Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and numerous contacts involving Trump campaign figures. His team, however, did not establish that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with the Russian government’s interference operation.

“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

On obstruction, Mueller declined to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. His report stated that the evidence did not exonerate Trump, but it also did not accuse him of a prosecutable crime.

Attorney General William Barr and Rosenstein later concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish obstruction.

The newly released documents therefore show the FBI considered an astonishing possibility—that a newly elected American president might be controlled by a hostile foreign power—but the investigation never substantiated it.

Barr appointed special counsel John Durham in 2019 to investigate the origins and handling of the Trump-Russia inquiry.

Durham’s 2023 report concluded that the FBI opened the full Crossfire Hurricane investigation without sufficient corroborated evidence and failed to apply the caution expected in a politically sensitive case.

“The Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.”

Durham said senior personnel displayed a serious lack of “analytical rigor” and relied too heavily on unconfirmed or inadequately examined information.

His investigation did not establish the sweeping criminal conspiracy Trump’s most aggressive allies had alleged. Durham obtained one guilty plea involving the alteration of an email used in a surveillance application, while two defendants were acquitted.

A separate Justice Department inspector general investigation reached a somewhat different conclusion. Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that the FBI possessed enough information under its low internal threshold to open Crossfire Hurricane.

But Horowitz also identified 17 significant errors or omissions in applications used to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The combined record presents a more complicated picture than either party’s preferred slogan. Russia interfered in the election, the FBI had grounds to investigate certain contacts, but the bureau repeatedly mishandled evidence and failed to substantiate the central allegation of Trump campaign coordination.

The investigation’s codename has generated a controversy of its own.

The declassified records appear to spell the case “Oxferd Comma,” while some pages may render the second “o” as a zero: “C0mma.”

Former acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark claimed the unusual spelling was deliberately designed to frustrate Freedom of Information Act searches.

“They called it OXFERD C0MMA—note the zero for the second ‘o’ and the misspelling of the university.”

Clark argued that FBI managers believed they were being clever by selecting terms that citizens, reporters and watchdog organizations would be unlikely to enter into a search.

“They imagined themselves as Blofeld in a James Bond movie deviously defeating the Freedom of Information Act.”

That theory has not been established. No released document states that the codename was intentionally misspelled to evade discovery. It could have been an inside joke, a typographical quirk or a routine effort to give an investigation a distinctive searchable label.

Still, after years of withheld records and heavily redacted releases, the misspelling is guaranteed to receive scrutiny.

When the FBI names a historically sensitive investigation after punctuation but cannot spell “Oxford,” suspicion tends to arrive before the grammar police.

The disclosure arrives while the Justice Department is again examining officials connected to the Trump-Russia investigation.

Federal prosecutors subpoenaed Comey earlier this year as part of a broad inquiry involving former government officials who investigated Trump. More than 130 subpoenas had reportedly been issued as of March, according to Reuters.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page have also faced subpoenas or investigative requests in related inquiries.

Brennan has called the renewed investigations politically motivated. Comey has denied wrongdoing in previous cases and has accused the Trump administration of using law enforcement to pursue political enemies.

The administration and its allies describe the investigations as a long-overdue examination of whether intelligence and law-enforcement officials abused their power to damage Trump’s presidency.

The new documents do not prove that former FBI leaders committed crimes. They do establish that the bureau opened a secret full investigation into whether Trump’s exercise of his constitutional authority to fire Comey was itself an act performed for Russia.

That decision deserves examination regardless of whether it ultimately produces a criminal case.

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