White House Releases Declassified Memos on FBI’s Trump-Russia Investigation, Sparks Debate Over Unusual Code Name

The White House released declassified FBI documents Wednesday detailing a bureau investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey was connected to Russia. The probe operated under the code name “Oxferd Comma,” a designation that has prompted questions about whether the spelling was deliberately altered to obscure the investigation’s paper trail.

Jeff Clark, who served as acting Assistant Attorney General in Trump’s first administration and now works as vice president of litigation at the Oversight Project, alleged the misspelling was intentional. Speaking to Fox News Digital, Clark claimed the FBI deliberately used an unconventional spelling to make records of the investigation harder to locate through Freedom of Information Act searches.

According to a May 16, 2017, memo, investigators examined whether Trump was “directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation” in violation of national security interests or federal law. The FBI opened the investigation days after Trump fired Comey in May 2017, though the White House initially cited the director’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Clark told social media followers he consulted a document expert who concluded the first letter “o” in “Comma” was actually a zero, further obfuscating searches. He speculated the misspelling could have prevented FOIA requesters using proper spelling from accessing relevant documents, allowing the FBI to claim no responsive records existed.

Social media users noted that Comey publicly expressed his fondness for Oxford commas in a 2017 post about his memoir, prompting speculation about the code name’s origins. The FBI’s Office of Public Affairs did not directly address the code name when contacted Thursday, instead emphasizing accountability for unethical conduct and noting the release of over 40,000 documents.