Former FBI Director James Comey started out as a Communist like CIA Director John Brennan in the 1970s:

"I’d moved from Communist to whatever I am now."

The roots of the collusion investigation were planted in early April 2016, when Mr. Comey requested from underlings “relevant information pertaining to any Presidential candidate.” (He was already deep in the Hillary Clinton email probe.) The report says that he was then briefed that the New York field office was looking at recently named Trump adviser Carter Page. It wasn’t “concerned about Page” so much as the “Russians reaching out” to him. Yet the Page case and “ones like it” became a “top priority for Director Comey.”

When the FBI got wind in July 2016 of a conversation between another Trump adviser and an Australian diplomat, Mr. McCabe ordered FBI agent Peter Strzok to skip all preliminary steps and launch a full counterintelligence investigation. Similarly, when the FBI received separate information from a Clinton attorney claiming a secret Trump server communicating with Russia, FBI leadership intervened to order a full probe, even though both cyber agents and Chicago-based agents were skeptical. One agent explained: “people on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.” McCabe would tell an inspector general that Mr. Comey “was getting daily briefings on this stuff.”

Line agents early on wanted to interview Mr. Page—a step agents said made only “too much sense” and the Durham report says would likely have put the whole issue to rest. They were “prohibited” by Messrs. Comey and McCabe, who remained fixated on getting a secret surveillance warrant on Mr. Page. The attorney prepping that application recalled “being constantly pressured” by “management” to push it through—being told that Mr. Comey “wants to know what’s going on,” while Mr. McCabe exhorted to “get this going.” When a deputy assistant attorney general raised concerns with the application’s reliance on Mr. Steele—given his work as a Clinton oppo researcher—supporters of the warrant went straight to Messrs. Comey and McCabe, who said to move ahead “despite his concerns.”