Pete Strzok spent years as the face of the Russia collusion investigation.
Now his own text messages prove the FBI knew the whole thing was garbage – and launched a secret criminal probe into the sitting president anyway.
Declassified memos released by the White House today just confirmed what Trump has said since day one.
The FBI Opened a Criminal Investigation on a Sitting President Using Evidence Its Own Agents Had Already Rejected
The secret probe was codenamed "Oxferd Comma" – launched on May 16, 2017, exactly one week after Trump fired James Comey.
The FBI's official justification was staggering in its audacity.
Bureau investigators declared they were opening a full investigation to determine whether President Trump "may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation."
In plain English: they opened a criminal probe on the sitting president of the United States based on the theory that he fired the FBI director because Putin told him to.
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2084990040380178888?s=20
Here's what makes it a scandal of historic proportions.
The very same week Oxferd Comma opened, Pete Strzok – the lead agent running the Russia investigation – texted FBI special counsel Lisa Page: "I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."
His colleague Special Agent William Barnett had already told the Justice Department the same thing: the FBI had no evidence that Trump, Michael Flynn, Carter Page, or George Papadopoulos had colluded with Russia.
They opened the investigation anyway.
Comey Was Fired for the Exact Reason the White House Said He Was
The Russia hoax crowd spent years insisting Trump fired Comey to kill the Russia investigation.
The declassified memos blow that narrative apart.
Records show Comey was fired because the DOJ concluded he mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation – the same conclusion the department's own inspector general later confirmed in writing, finding that Comey "violated long-standing department practice and protocol."
Rod Rosenstein – the deputy attorney general who wrote the memo recommending Comey's firing – knew all of this firsthand.
And yet Rosenstein authorized Robert Mueller's appointment the very next day after Oxferd Comma opened, turning a probe built on discarded evidence into a two-year investigation that defined – and paralyzed – the first Trump term.
Mueller's team found no collusion, just as the FBI's own agents predicted.
https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/2085019230408212809?s=20
John Durham confirmed in 2023 that the FBI had no legitimate basis to open even the original Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
By the time Oxferd Comma launched, the Steele dossier – funded by the Clinton campaign and written by a paid British spy – had already been gutted by the FBI's own analysts.
None of it mattered.
They opened Oxferd Comma, fed it into Mueller's probe, and spent two more years hunting a crime they already knew didn't exist.
The Timing Is Not an Accident
These memos weren't declassified in a vacuum.
Federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Florida are currently running a grand jury investigation into whether FBI, DOJ, and intelligence agency officials engaged in a criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Trump and his supporters through repeated investigations they knew lacked evidence.
James Comey is under subpoena.
Classified transcripts of John Brennan's congressional testimony have been sent to prosecutors.
Joseph diGenova – the U.S. attorney leading the Florida investigation – told reporters directly: "The president of the United States, Barack Obama, authorized the FBI to investigate it knowing that it was false."
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/2084994073778061660?s=20
The Oxferd Comma memos are the receipts.
They show the FBI knew the collusion narrative was falling apart, watched its own lead agent say there was nothing there, and opened a new criminal probe on the sitting president anyway – timed perfectly to trigger the Mueller appointment that would haunt Trump's first term.
That's not an investigation.
That's a coordinated operation.
And for the first time, it's documented in the FBI's own words.
Sources:
- John Solomon, "FBI Secretly Opened Probe Alleging Trump Fired Comey because he was a Russian Asset, Declassified Memos Show," WhiteHouse.gov, August 5, 2026.
- Breccan F. Thies, "FBI Used Comey Firing To Open New Russia Hoax Investigation Using Debunked Information," The Federalist, August 5, 2026.
- Teri Christoph, "Boom: White House's 'Oxferd Comma' Document Dump Just Blew the Russia Hoax to Smithereens," RedState, August 5, 2026.
- John Solomon, "FBI Follies: Bureau secretly probed Trump as a Russian asset for firing Comey: declassified memos," Just the News, August 5, 2026.
- Jeff Charles, "Bombshell: Newly-Declassified Documents Reveal the Real Reason for 'Russiagate' Investigation," Townhall, August 5, 2026.
- Washington Examiner, "'Grand conspiracy' investigation into Obama-era officials gains steam," Washington Examiner, April 1, 2026.