The FBI opened an investigation into then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 10, 2017, one day after President Donald Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey, over allegations that Sessions made false statements to Congress about contacts with Russian officials, newly declassified records show.
The investigation began nearly two months after Sessions supplemented his disputed testimony and was initially based on a letter from two Democratic senators. The documents were declassified by Trump and released Monday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, with Just the News founder John Solomon briefing the public on their contents.
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Code-named “MARCH TOLL,” the investigation was opened by the FBI’s Washington Field Office at the direction of bureau headquarters. Its initial predicate was a March 20 letter from former Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy (VT) and Al Franken (MN), raising concerns about Sessions’s confirmation testimony.
However, it was not reported until this week that the FBI actually started the process of opening an investigation into Sessions, which took an entire year to be formally withdrawn.
Sessions told lawmakers in January 2017 that he “did not have communication with the Russians” after Franken asked whether Trump campaign associates had communicated with the Russian government. Reports later disclosed that Sessions, then a U.S. senator, had met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign.
Sessions supplemented his testimony on March 6, acknowledging the meetings but maintaining that his original answer was truthful because Franken had asked about campaign-related exchanges rather than contacts Sessions had as a senator.
“I did not mention communications I had had with the Russian Ambassador over the years because the question did not ask about them,” Sessions wrote.
Leahy and Franken remained dissatisfied, telling Comey they were concerned by Sessions’s “lack of candor” and testimony that “could be construed as perjury.”
The FBI records show Comey notified then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on April 28 that a case would be opened. The bureau opened it on May 10, the day after Comey’s firing, though Sessions’s supplemental testimony was notably not added to the investigative file until May 23.
The code name MARCH TOLL has also drawn attention online because Sessions’s recusal from matters involving the 2016 presidential campaign was discussed within the Justice Department in early March, though it is unclear as to the exact reason for the code name.
Jeff Clark, a former senior DOJ attorney during Trump’s first term, speculated on X Monday that his “running theory” for the name behind the investigation is that “that is a reference to the month when Sessions decided to recuse.” Sessions recused himself from the criminal investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which were ultimately fully debunked by a special counsel investigation.
One clue could exist within the details of a March 2, 2017, schedule, which identified former DOJ lawyers James Crowell and Tashina “Tash” Gauhar among those attending a one-hour “discussion on recusal issues” in the attorney general’s conference room. The available records do not explicitly establish that the meeting inspired the investigation’s code name, though Sessions would go on to recuse himself from all future investigations related to the 2016 election that day.
‘OXFERD COMMA’ INVESTIGATION BEING DECLASSIFIED BY WHITE HOUSE, WITH JOHN SOLOMON BRIEFING
Meanwhile, Crowell and Gauhar’s names would later reappear in records concerning “Oxferd Comma,” another FBI investigation opened on May 16 around the time of Comey’s firing, which more specifically fixated on whether Trump acted on Russia’s behalf when he dismissed Comey. Both lawyers were also involved in deliberations surrounding the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mueller’s office ultimately concluded it could not prove that Sessions had been “willfully untruthful” and agreed the investigation should be closed. The FBI formally closed MARCH TOLL on May 8, 2018, without filing charges.
