ANNAL$ OF TRUMPI$TAN: How a Counterintelligence Inquiry Into Trump’s Russia Ties Was Derailed (Michael S. Schmidt, NY Times, August 10, 2026)

From The Washington Post:

How a Counterintelligence Inquiry Into Trump’s Russia Ties Was Derailed

Documents released by the White House shed new light on the demise of an often-overlooked 2017 F.B.I. investigation.

President Trump has always dismissed as baseless political smears suggestions that he was a Russian asset.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Michael S. Schmidt

  August 10, 2026

 

For the last year, the Trump administration’s efforts to seek retribution against intelligence officials and F.B.I. agents who investigated Russia’s 2016 election meddling have been spearheaded by federal prosecutors in South Florida trying to build a criminal case.

But in recent weeks, the White House has added a dimension to its push to rewrite the history of the Russia investigation, releasing a trove of previously classified F.B.I. memos that it says back up President Trump’s claims that a so-called deep state was out to get him.

There is little new of substance in the documents, and nothing that fundamentally undercuts the F.B.I.’s rationale for pursuing the Russia investigation.

But the material does shed new light on an often overlooked aspect of the swirl of events surrounding Mr. Trump in his first months in office in 2017: the bureau’s remarkable decision to open a separate counterintelligence investigation into the president of the United States, and how that inquiry was sidetracked before it had much of a chance to get going.

Mr. Trump has always dismissed as baseless smears suggestions that he was a Russian asset or had extensive financial ties to Russia. And no publicly known investigation into Mr. Trump ever demonstrated that he was acting at the behest of the Russians.

Here is a look at what we know now, based on the new documents and interviews with former federal law enforcement officials, about what happened.

The F.B.I. Launched A Two-Pronged Inquiry

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The headquarters of the F.B.I. in Washington. In 2017, officials there launched a counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Although the scrutiny of Mr. Trump at the time became known as the Russia investigation, there were actually several distinct inquiries.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the F.B.I. opened an investigation into whether the Trump campaign was working with the Russian government as the country interfered in the presidential election to hurt Hillary Clinton. That investigation — known as Crossfire Hurricane — was not looking directly at Mr. Trump’s personal conduct or his ties to Russia.

But in May 2017, a week after Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, senior officials and counterintelligence agents at the bureau decided to move forward with a two-pronged inquiry. It was oddly code-named Oxferd Comma.

One of the investigations was to be criminal. It was to examine whether Mr. Trump, in firing Mr. Comey, broke the law by obstructing justice and interfering with the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling. It was also to assess whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians.

The second was to be a counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

Counterintelligence investigations are different from criminal inquiries. Instead of focusing exclusively on whether the law was broken, counterintelligence investigations look at whether a foreign adversary is undermining the United States.

Counterintelligence investigations are classified, take place in secret and unfold over many years — sometimes more than a decade. Civil liberties watchdogs are critical of them because they often surface embarrassing, but not criminal, behavior by Americans. People are rarely charged in such cases, but the F.B.I. often takes steps, like warning officials and citizens, about how those around them may be trying to influence them.

Referring to the counterintelligence inquiry, one of the declassified memos made public by the White House last week said: “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.”