Newly declassified White House records have pulled back the curtain on another jaw dropping chapter from the Russia saga, and once again the facts do not flatter the permanent bureaucracy that spent years treating President Donald Trump like the enemy.

The FBI opened a secret criminal investigation into Trump just days after he fired former Director James Comey in 2017, according to records released by the White House Government Transparency Task Force.

The bureau was not merely asking routine questions, it was exploring whether the sitting president of the United States might have been acting as an agent of Russia.

The case was given the codename “Oxferd Comma” and was formally opened on May 16, 2017, just one week after Comey was removed.

JUST IN: White House REVEALS FBI Opened Investigation of Trump In 2017 Accusing Him of Being An Agent of Russia With NO EVIDENCE Newly declassified documents reveal 'Oxferd Comma' was opened solely because he fired James Comey The President's own FBI was working against him... pic.twitter.com/gvawGUmvD5

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For Americans who remember the media frenzy that followed, the newly released paperwork reads less like sober law enforcement and more like the machinery of Washington panic kicking into gear.

“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 which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States,” the document states.

That language is extraordinary on its face.

The FBI was not investigating some obscure campaign aide in a back office, it was investigating the president himself under a theory that sounded ripped from the fever dreams of cable news panels.

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“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,” it added.

“In addition, this investigation will also seek to determine whether President Trump and others yet to be named obstructed and/or conspiracy to obstruct any associated FBI investigation.”

The memo was prepared inside the FBI counterintelligence division and approved by former General Counsel James Baker and former Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap.

In plain English, this was not some stray idea scribbled on a napkin by a junior agent.

Investigators cited Trump’s public comments about Comey’s firing as part of the justification for opening the case.

“This alternative explanation can be reasonably read to imply that the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation was a factor in President Trump’s decision to terminate Comey,” the memo states.

That is the kind of reasoning that should make every American pause, especially those who still believe federal power should answer to elected authority and not the other way around.

A president fired an FBI director, which presidents have constitutional authority to do, and the bureau responded by probing whether he was secretly serving Moscow.

The records also show former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were told the investigation had been opened.

The FBI labeled the matter a “sensitive investigative matter” and described it as “the least intrusive method” available, which is a rather polished phrase for an investigation that helped engulf a presidency.

Rosenstein appointed Special Counsel Robert Mueller shortly afterward, unleashing a probe that hovered over the early Trump White House for nearly two years.

After all the leaks, breathless headlines, and liberal wish casting, Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Years later, Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI lacked sufficient grounds to open the original Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged Trump Russia collusion.

That finding landed with far less media hysteria than the original accusations, naturally, because corrections never get the same prime placement when Trump is the target.

The newly released records show that Oxferd Comma was closed on April 9, 2019, shortly after Mueller completed his work.

“The Special Counsel provided the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining his prosecution and declination decisions,” the closing memo states.

The declassification arrives as federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Florida, are reportedly examining whether officials at the FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies participated in a broader effort to violate the civil rights of Trump and his supporters through investigations allegedly lacking evidence.

If that probe moves forward, Washington may have to answer questions it has dodged for years.

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The documents also reveal that investigators explored whether Trump could have been acting as an asset of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That premise had already drawn doubt from within the FBI itself, including from former Deputy Assistant Director Pete Strzok.

“I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there,” Strzok wrote to FBI special counsel Lisa Page on May 19, 2017.

That one line may end up being the most revealing sentence in the entire saga.

Even inside the bureau, there was concern that the whole thing lacked substance, yet the machine rolled on anyway, leaving Trump and millions of his voters to wonder just how far powerful agencies were willing to go.

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