Posted on 03/14/2020 6:18:21 AM PDT by billorites
Its long been known that Stefan Halper served as a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI. Inspector General Michael Horowitzs report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse, while not identifying Halper by name, added many details concerning his extensive role in spying on the Trump campaign: Halper secretly recorded several conversations with Trump campaign advisors Carter Page and George Papadopoulos and, more troublingly, the FBI tasked Halper to tape an extensive conversation with Sam Clovisa co-chair of the Trump presidential campaign.
Publicly available information on government contracts also reveal that Halper received hundreds of thousands of dollars for four projects he completed for the Department of Defenses Office of Net Assessments. As part of his oversight responsibilities as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley has raised concerns about the merits of those contracts and further questioned whether Halper used any taxpayer money in his attempt to recruit Trump campaign officials as sources.
Grassley has yet to receive answers to his questions. And it remains unknown which Trump campaign officials Halper attempt[ed] to recruit as sources, as the IG reportor at least the unredacted portions of that reportmake no mention of such efforts.
Something Grassley hasnt probed, however, but merits further investigation is whether Halper received further funding from the Department of Defense off-the-books or through some pass-through conduits. Publicly available information suggests Halper had done so in the past.
Specifically, a syllabus for the intelligence seminar at the University of Cambridge where Halper taught alongside the former head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, listed Halper as leading a discussion of The Afghan End Game. And the summary of Halpers scheduled October 7, 2011, seminar presentation noted that he had recently completed a major survey of Allied end game options in Afghanistan for the then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
But a search for contracts awarded to Halper revealed only the four contracts Grassley inquired about, and the oldest contract awarded Halper had a start date of May 2012. A search of all available fiscal years, which dated back to 2008, revealed no hits for Halper in 2011 or earlierthe time period a contract would have been issued for his research project on Afghanistan. These facts suggest not all of Halpers work for our government was captured in the contracting databases.
Of course, one wouldnt expect the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to disclose its agents and sources publicly. But that didnt stop people familiar with the matter from leaking to the Washington Post that the professoreasily identified as Halper from the details included in the Posts articlehad served as a source for both the FBI and the CIA.
Halpers past relationship with the CIA highlights yet another possible task master for the 76-year-old during the 2016 election and raises the question of whether Halper was working for the CIA or another intelligence agency before the FBI brought him on as a CHS in early August 2016. The IG reports conclusion that the FBI had not used any confidential human sources prior to the launch of Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016, indicates Halper had another boss before then, because Halper first engaged with Page at a small dinner gathering at Magdalene College in Cambridge on July 10, 2016.
But additional facts raise still another possibility: that Halper was working with the Clinton campaign at this time.
On July 6, 2016, just days before Halper dined with Page and a dozen other select guests at Magdalene College, Halper spoke at a plenary lecture series at Cambridge on the phenomenon which is Trumps maverick candidacy. A write-up of the talk noted that Halper explain[ed] the deficits in Clintons campaign which have caused the campaign to become almost too close to call, and then concluded his talk by stating that if the media focuses on Clinton, she will lose, whereas if they continue to focus on Trump, he will lose.
This will be true despite Trumps adept handling of the media that has resulted in him receiving two billion dollars worth of free media coverage, Halper said, according to the blog post.
Four days after sharing his sage insights with the attendees of the lecture series, Halper welcomed Clinton surrogate and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and former Republican Party strategist and outspoken Never Trumper Vin Weber, to the same Cambridge conference Page attended. According to the Washington Post, Pages presence at that conference came at the behest of Halper, whose grad student called and emailed Page an invitation to the seminar. The Post also reported that Cambridge paid for Pages air travel and accommodationsa strange arrangement given that Page was not a featured speaker at the conference.
While at Cambridge, Page dined with Halper and a small group of other dignitaries. On August 5, 2016, the Washington Post also reported that while at the Cambridge conference, Page attended a closed-door session co-chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and Republican consultant Vin Weber. Page declined to comment on the article, though, which portrayed Page as a Russian patsy and further laid the groundwork for the Russia-collusion conspiracy theory.
But if Page did not speak with reporters, who told the Post that Page participated in a closed-door session with Albright and Weber? Could it have been Halper?
This same time framelate July to early Augustwas when Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, in concert with and on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign, also began promoting the Russia-conspiracy hoax in earnest. While Steele worked the FBI, details from the dodgy dossier were also peddled to the press, as demonstrated by this July 26, 2016 text from Damian Palettathen with the Wall Street Journalshow.
The texts mention of Pages supposed meeting in Moscow with Igor Sechin, and the Russians possession of solid kompromat on Clinton as well as Trump, mirrored portions of Steeles July 19, 2016 memorandum. This suggests either Steele or Fusion GPS had begun plying the press with the dossier almost as soon as Steele penned that work of fiction.
Steele wasnt the only one selling the Russia collusion story to the press, though, according to Svetlana Lokhova. Lokhova, a U.K. citizen of Russian descent and a former Cambridge Ph.D. student, sued Halper and others for defamation, alleging the defendants pushed the falsehood that she was a Russian spy and the paramour of Michael Flynn. (Her legal claims were recently dismissed, but Lokhova has promised an appeal.)
Lokhova told The Federalist that Halper had been pushing the story that I was a Russian spy and Flynns mistress since December of 2016. The New York Times Mathew Rosenberg told me a source had been circulating these stories since December 2016, Lokhova added. Lee Smith, in his book The Plot Against the President, confirmed the story that Flynn had a relationship with the Russian-born Lokhova had been circulated to the press starting in December 2016.
If Halper had been priming the press, as Lokhova claims, why and on whose behalf?
The FBI fired Steele for talking to the press, making clear thats a no-no for a CHS. Conversely, the DNC and Clinton campaign paid for Fusion GPS to seed the media with tales of Trumps supposed escapades. One must wonder, then, if Halper was helping in those efforts.
These questions deserve answers, and while it may not be the governments business to inquire whether a political party is paying for propaganda, it sure the heck is its business to ensure the CIA and FBI arent.
DUH.....they ALL DID!!!!
When is DOJ and Durham going to get off the dime and begin legal proceedings. Thus slow walking is crippling to justice. Or are about to learn there are some citizens who are above the law and not subject to the same laws you and I are?????
Answer: yes
Overlapping NDAs, double-billing, and recycling pure malarky.... the tradecraft of the sleazy consultants and fake academics.
Bookmark- Halper
Where is this guy? Its been 3 years now has anyone seen Steve?
Halper’s roots go back to the CIA.
Halper is the son-in-law of Ray S. Cline old school CIA clear back to Cuban Missile Crisis. Cline remained head of the Directorate of Intelligence until 1966.
These questions deserve answers, and while it may not be the governments business to inquire whether a political party is paying for propaganda, it sure the heck is its business to ensure the CIA and FBI arent.
***************
While we will never see justice for the Spygate cabal at least we have a better understanding of just how corrupt some of the key agencies in our government really are and that it is largely a kleptocracy which is aided and protected by the Deep State.
At least we now clearly know what we’re dealing with even if Barr, and the U.S. congress don’t give a damn.
Reporter John Soloman said last night that those who are hoping for prosecutions are going to be disappointed. Might be one or two but my interpretation of his take was that the best we’ll get out of this is exposure of some higher ups who were involved and the fact that Spygate was in progress well before 2016.
The other take away from Spygate (in my view) will be wide recognition of (1) how corrupt the government really is and (2) the system protects its own.
We have a tiered legal system in this country. There will be no denying that fact any longer.
Interesting. I knew who Ray Cline was but wasn’t aware of his connection to Halper.
0bungo, Hillary, and the whole DNC lot makes Nixon look like a rank amateur and yet no one will ever prosecute them for the corruption they commit
Congressman Jim Jordan recently said that Durham was going to complete his investigation “this summer”. DoJ and FBI usually drag thing out for months longer than whatever they say — originally Durham was to have something by about...now.
Bump
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