FBI/JAMES COMEY/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The FBI was so distressed by President Donald Trump’s behavior in the second week of May 2017, when he fired FBI Director James B. Comey, that it opened criminal and counterintelligence investigations to determine if the president was acting on behalf of Russia against the United States or had fallen under its sway, the New York Times reported on Friday night. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III soon assumed control of and merged the FBI investigations into his own, and no evidence has surfaced publicly to show that Trump had become a willing Russian dupe. But even so, the Times account pulses like a John le Carré thriller as the FBI works to determine if the country has fallen to the Russians in a silent coup. FBI antennae began twitching in summer 2016 during the campaign, the Times reports, when Trump urged the Russians to find and release Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. Trump seemed never to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Republican Party platform went soft on the Russians over the Ukraine invasion. Later, as the Steele dossier gained circulation inside higher Washington circles, directly claiming that Trump had been compromised, worries inside the bureau became palpable. But it was the firing of Comey, buttressed by the interview Trump gave to NBC News’ Lester Holt in which he said he sacked the director because of the Russia investigation, that prompted the FBI to act.”
–Jack Shafer, “Week 86: FBI’s Blockbuster Probe of Trump’s Loyalty Revealed,” Politico, January 12, 2019