(Washington, D.C.) With growing concern surrounding the connections between the Trump administration and Russian officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is closely scrutinizing every mode of communication at the Trump administration’s disposal. Despite the administration’s efforts to leave less of a trace in their correspondences, the FBI has recently uncovered a single-file line of grade school students who have been passing notes between Trump and Putin since before the election.

It began innocently enough. Donald scrawled “Do you like my campaign? Check: da or nyet,” onto wide rule notebook paper with one of those pencils with a dozen little pieces of lead that stack on top of each other, and folded it 4 times – one, two, three, four – before nudging Timothy and passing it off with two fingers. Timothy then “psst”ed Fraz, who passed it to Nadine, who slid it across to Kyle, who tucked it into Penelope’s palm; and the trend continued on out of Trump tower, across New York City, onto a transatlantic shipping freighter, until Dima passed the note to Svetlana, who passed it to Putin, who checked “Da,” added a doodle of himself atop a bear, and returned the note to Svetlana who passed it to Dima, and so on back across the sea.

While pots were stirred and fingers were pointed over private email servers and Zodiac killers in the course of the US presidential race, thousands of grade schoolers did what they did best: passed notes right under the noses of authority figures. Now that the FBI has become privy to this literal paper trail, they’ve spent hours interviewing students and unfolding paper footballs whose insides are covered in Trump’s and Putin’s distinctive handwriting and doodles of racecars.

“We haven’t learned much that we didn’t already know from other sources coming to light,” Chief Research Officer, Omar Padin disclosed. “It’s mostly advice from Putin to Trump on how to simulate outrage, and ‘#MAGA’ in big, block letters, and some of those cool pointy ‘S’es. They honestly didn’t stay on task much.”

Yet, the FBI has not yet released any transcripts of the notes at this time, as there is still very sensitive material in each of them. The children who transmitted the messages are also proving difficult, as they insist on not being snitches, so as to receive no stitches.

When the matter was brought up at the daily White House press briefing, Sean Spicer predictably imploded. “Aren’t your arms getting sore from reaching all the time? You people are so desperate to make connections to Russia! You think just because a few thousand 1st through 5th graders were utilized to play a little paper football across the Atlantic, that suddenly there’s a concrete connection between the President and Russia? Come on! I mean- I mean- I mean-” and here, the press secretary made an interminable series of guffaws, grunts, and snivels while his eyes unblinkingly gazed at his left hand which convulsed uncontrollably for one minute and nine seconds. There were no further questions permitted after this, and secretary Spicer spoke for another five minutes on the merits of Russian dressing and not shaking one’s head.

As the investigation continues, there is not much expectation that new, or at the very least, surprising information will surface from the notes. The children have since been allowed to return to their classes, and inside sources report that, when asked to “Will you go to the dance with me,” by Robert, Deja added a “maybe” box, but filled it in with a winky face.

This article was written by Kevin Harrington-Bain, who always thought the cool pointy S was a Dragonball Z thing, but now supposes that’s not the case. Follow him for more on Twitter @kkevinb