The president exercised his constitutional authority to fire an FBI director, and the FBI responded by opening a counterintelligence investigation into him.
The key document is a declassified FBI “Opening Electronic Communication,” dated May 16, 2017, exactly one week after Trump fired Comey on May 9. It authorized a full investigation into the sitting president of the United States under the codename “Oxferd Comma.” No, that’s not a typo. Don’t ask me why it’s spelled that way. […]
So what was the “articulable factual basis” for treating a duly elected president as a suspected Russian asset? Trump’s conversations with Comey. The document claims Trump “sought Comey’s personal loyalty” and “asked Comey to publicize the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation.” It also states that Trump “asked Comey to do what he could to resolve the investigations.”
That’s it. That’s the smoking gun. A president asked why the FBI wouldn’t publicly admit what it privately told him, that he wasn’t under investigation, and the bureau treated the question as evidence of a Kremlin conspiracy.
John Solomon has a summary. Download the docs here.