New twist in Trump revenge plot as White House declassifies secret FBI probe

On Wednesday, the White House released classified information asserting that the FBI investigated whether President Donald Trump was acting as a Russian asset when he fired former FBI Director James Comey. An administration official who spoke with CBS News maintains that the allegation is groundless.

As CBS News reports, "The official said the investigation, known as Oxferd Comma, was a subcomponent of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI probe into potential collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government — an investigation that has long drawn Mr. Trump's ire. The predicate of Oxferd Comma was the newly elected president's decision to fire Comey in 2017. The case was marked sensitive, which is generally done to keep a case off the books from other agents, the official said. The agents who opened the case said they believe it was going to be the least intrusive method to address a serious national security risk."

Oxferd Comma was eventually fused with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's wider investigation into Trump, said the official, asserting that it was found to "not have merit" when the investigation ended.

"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 said. "The short of it is, almost everything in the FBI's possession at that point had debunked or ruled out that Trump or his campaign was colluding with Russia at that time."

Comey was fired by Trump shortly into the president's first term, with the White House claiming it was over the mishandling of the investigation into Hilary Clinton's emails. According to CBS, however, "Mueller's report claimed Mr. Trump was frustrated with Comey for refusing to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation for potential ties to Russia."

"Comey's firing ended up as the catalyst that set a larger investigation into Mr. Trump in motion," explains CBS. "After Comey's dismissal, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as a special counsel to investigate claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and any potential ties to the Trump campaign. Mueller ultimately did not find evidence that members of the Trump campaign 'conspired or coordinated' with Russia, though he did describe some contacts between the campaign and Russian government-linked individuals."

While Comey has faced charges in recent months over allegations that his post of seashells spelling "86-47" was a threat against the president, the revelation last week that Trump had ordered the Secret Service to track the former FBI director in a "legally questionable" manner has upended the case.