The FBI Investigated Trump’s Russian Involvement Post Comey Firing (Video)

This is not a House of Cards plot.

In May 2017, days after Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, the FBI initiated an investigation into whether the president was working secretly on behalf of the Russian government.

According to a New York Times piece, citing former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation, the agency considered Trump’s actions as a potential threat to national security, seeking to determine whether Trump was a willing or unwitting agent to Moscow.

Agents had grown suspicious of Trump’s behavior during the 2016 presidential campaign, but decided against investigating due to uncertainty over how to proceed with something with such serious implications.

Once Trump fired Comey over “this Russia thing,” however, the agency acted.

Of the FBI officials responsible for opening the investigation, Trump cited without evidence via tweet on Saturday:

“Almost all [were] fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons.”

Trump continued, predictably, to spew ad hominem attacks on the Times and James Comey:

 “Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!”

Attempting to mollify the situation, he added:

“I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!”

This, of course, should come as no surprise to those who have been undeterred in following Special Council Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Malcolm Nance, retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) agent, counter-intelligence expert, and author of the books The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election and The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West, stated Trump’s base is “Russia, the Russian oligarchy and Vladimir Putin.”

He elaborated:

“[Russia] chose him as an asset due to his phenomenal characteristics of just being a blowhard, of being an arrogant narcissistic personality. Which, you know, the famous spy Yuri Bezmenov said those were the characteristics they wanted in an asset. They wanted a person they could manipulate. Donald Trump is like a case officer’s dream. He comes in and when he comes out and does those arrogant pronunciations, a good intelligence staff like, I don’t know, an ex-former KGB officer and his top four staffers who are KGB-FSB retirees, they would be able to manipulate Donald Trump no matter what he said or when he said it. Donald Trump sees Russia, the Russian oligarchy and Vladimir Putin as his base, equal to the red hats that he has in the United States. So he brags to them in, you know, in the face of America. He does not understand what the Constitution is. I used to say that [Trump] was treason adjacent. Now I say that he’s just neck-deep in treachery.”

PoliticusUSA’s Sarah Reese Jones listed ways in which Trump’s behavior demonstrates that of a Russian asset:

Why else would Trump have confiscated, possibly ordered destroyed, notes transcribed during a private meeting with Vladimir Putin?

Image credit: Flickr

Ted Millar is writer and teacher. His work has been featured in myriad literary journals, including Better Than Starbucks, The Broke Bohemian, Straight Forward Poetry, Caesura, Circle Show, Cactus Heart, Third Wednesday, and The Voices Project. He is also a contributor to The Left Place blog on Substack, and Medium.