FBI Opened a Secret Probe Into Whether Trump Was a Russian Asset, Then Just Dropped It

By Tammy-Jo Pritchett · August 12, 2026

Opinion

So I read the documents. All of them. While the talking heads on every channel were busy spinning, I sat at my kitchen table after the kids went to bed and actually read what the FBI wrote. And let me tell you something, I have questions.

Here is what the FBI’s own opening memorandum says, dated May 16, 2017. The Bureau had an “articulable factual basis” to investigate whether the President of the United States “may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation.” They wanted to know if Trump “is or was directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with” Russia in a way that threatened our national security.

Read that again. The FBI opened a full counterintelligence investigation into whether the sitting President was working for a foreign adversary. Not a criminal probe. A counterintelligence probe. The kind they use to figure out if somebody is a threat to the country.

Now, the Trump White House released these documents to prove the whole thing was a hoax. John Solomon, who runs some “Government Transparency Task Force” now, put out a statement saying this was all part of a chain of events that “hampered the start of the Trump presidency.” The FBI’s own current spokesman, Ben Williamson, called it “weaponization” that was “wholly un-American.” Kash Patel, who is now running the FBI, released 40,000 pages to prove the old leadership was corrupt.

And maybe they are right that the FBI has been run by people who think rules are for little people. I have been saying that for years.

FBI's own opening memorandum, FBI memorandum dated May 16, 2017, citing basis for counterintelligence investigation into President Trump.

But here is the part nobody on either side wants to talk about. The FBI opened this investigation, code-named Oxferd Comma, and then once Robert Mueller got appointed, the whole counterintelligence piece got swallowed up by Mueller’s criminal investigation. Mueller was looking for crimes. The counterintelligence people were looking for whether the President was compromised by a hostile foreign power. Those are two different questions.

And then in 2019, the FBI quietly closed the counterintelligence investigation without ever answering it.

Let me put this in terms any parent would understand. If the school counselor told me she had an “articulable factual basis” to believe one of my kids was being groomed by a predator, I would want her to investigate. And if she opened the file, then handed it off to somebody else who was looking at a completely different question, and then she just closed the file without ever figuring out whether my kid was safe? I would be at that school board meeting so fast it would make her head spin.

That is what happened here. The FBI thought the President might be under the influence of Russia. They wrote it down. They opened a formal case. And then they never finished the job.

The memorandum cited real things. Russia interfering in the 2016 election. Russians offering help to the Trump campaign. Trump’s own son saying in 2008 that Russians made up a “disproportionate cross-section” of Trump’s assets. The campaign pushing to soften the Republican platform on Ukraine. Trump firing James Comey and giving three different reasons for it.

Robert Mueller got appointed, and his criminal investigation swallowed up the counterintelligence piece.

Maybe none of that adds up to anything. Mueller found no conspiracy or coordination. John Durham criticized the FBI for “lack of analytical rigor” but did not find enough to recommend sweeping changes.

But here is what I cannot get past. If the FBI genuinely believed the President might be compromised by a foreign government, how do you just close the file? And if they did not genuinely believe it, how do you open it in the first place?

Either way, these are the people who are supposed to be keeping this country safe. They opened the most serious investigation you can imagine into a sitting president and then treated it like a homework assignment they forgot to turn in.

I have raised four kids. I know what it looks like when somebody starts something they never intended to finish. And I know what it looks like when an institution thinks you are too dumb to notice.

We noticed.

Sources