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What We Learned Sunday From Spygate Insider Steven Schrage
The Federalist ^ | August 10, 2020 | Margot Cleveland

Posted on 08/10/2020 7:55:19 AM PDT by Kaslin

What Spygate insider Steven Schrage revealed suggests significant revelations will be forthcoming from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation.


This weekend, Spygate insider Steven Schrage broke his silence.

In “The Spies Who Hijacked America” and a follow-up appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Schrage detailed the origins of Stefan Halper’s meeting with then-Trump advisor Carter Page. Halper would later serve as a confidential human source (CHS) for the Crossfire Hurricane probe, secretly recording multiple conversations with Page, as well as Trump advisor George Papadopoulos.

But it is what Schrage revealed about Halper’s initial non-interest in Page then Halper’s prediction on January 10, 2017, that Michael Flynn would not last long in the Trump administration that suggest significant revelations will be forthcoming from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of Spygate.

In July 2016, Schrage was finishing his Ph.D. at Cambridge University under Halper’s supervision when he invited Page to speak at a conference entitled “2016’s Race to Change the World: How the U.S. Presidential Campaign Can Reshape Global Politics and Foreign Policy.” Given Halper’s later role as a CHS in Crossfire Hurricane, many surmised that Halper sought out Page’s attendance at the conference.

But on Sunday, Schrage made clear that he, not Halper, was responsible for Page’s participation in the conference. In fact, Halper “ironically,” as Schrage wrote, “had repeatedly urged [Schrage] to cancel” the conference, which was “headlined by Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton’s confidante Madeleine Albright.”

But Schrage did not cancel the conference. Instead, “after a 20-something Cambridge administrative official smugly told me ‘there’s no way Trump can win’ and cut our travel funding, it sent me on a mad scramble,” Schrage wrote. “I had to find someone, anyone, to fly over on a last-minute economy ticket to represent the Trump campaign,” and that is how Page crossed paths with Halper. During his interview with Bartiromo, Schrage added that he wanted a representative of the Trump campaign at the conference to provide balance.

From Schrage’s telling, then, neither he nor Halper sought out Page’s participation in the conference for a nefarious purpose. But he says things changed when former MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove arrived toward the end of the conference.

“For most of the conference, Halper couldn’t be bothered with Page, about whom he made snarky comments about behind Page’s back,” Schrage wrote. “That all changed,” though, after Halper spoke to his “long-time collaborator,” Dearlove. Halper then “seemed desperately interested in isolating, cornering, and ingratiating himself to Page and promoting himself to the Trump campaign.”

Schrage’s statement contradicts the tale Halper told FBI agents on August 11, 2016, when they asked for his assistance in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. According to inspector general’s report, the FBI asked Halper if he knew Papadopoulos, and after saying he didn’t, Halper “then asked whether the team had any interest in an individual named Carter Page.” “[T]he members of the investigative team ‘didn’t react because at that point we didn’t know where we were going to go with it,’” the IG report noted, but the Crossfire Hurricane team then asked Halper about how he knew Page.

According to the report, “Halper told the agents in mid-July 2016, Carter Page attended a three-day conference, during which Page had approached [Halper] and asked [Halper] to be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign.” Given Halper’s connection to Page, the FBI tasked him to spy on Page as well as Papadopoulos, leading to Halper recording multiple conversations with the Trump advisor.

If Schrage’s version is accurate, Halper purposefully connected to Page and then sold that connection to the FBI to spy on him. Also, under the scenario Schrage presents, Halper did so at Dearlove’s behest. But why? What was Dearlove’s interest?

Here, Schrage’s article is a must-read synopsis of what he calls “the Cambridge Four,” which in addition to Dearlove and Halper includes Dearlove’s former MI6 underling, Christopher Steele, and the official MI5 historian turned Cambridge academic Christopher Andrew. Together, the four have fingers in several different strands of Spygate, from the spying on Page, to the invention of an affair between Flynn and the Russian-born, Cambridge Ph.D. student Svetlana Lokhova, to, of course, the Steele dossier.

Steele, we know was paid by the Clinton campaign. But what induced Dearlove, Halper, and Andrew to join in the endeavor? Was it money? Or did intelligence agencies seek out their assistance? If so, which intelligence community? While questioning Dearlove, Steele, or Andrew may prove impossible, Halper is a U.S. citizen. So why hasn’t he been hauled before Congress to explain himself?

Halper has quite a bit to explain because, in addition to grooming Page during the Cambridge conference, according to Schrage, Halper seemed amazingly prescient about the fate of Trump’s national security advisor.

In a January 10, 2017, conversation with Halper that Schrage recorded, Halper told him, “I don’t think Flynn’s going to be around long.” Halper then detailed the Machiavellian maneuvers likely to come: “The way these things work,” Halper said, was that “opponents. . . . so-called enemies” of Flynn would be “looking for ways of exerting pressure.” Flynn would be “squeezed pretty hard,” Halper suggested, and then Flynn’s “reaction to that is to blow up and get angry. He’s really f-cked. I don’t know where he goes from there. But that is his reaction. That’s why he’s so unsuitable.”

When Halper made these predictions, Flynn’s telephone calls with the Russian ambassador were not yet publicly known. Two days later, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported those calls after receiving a leak of classified information from a still unknown source, and set in motion the scenario that led to Flynn’s firing.

Whether Halper knew the specific “squeeze” that would be put on Flynn, in the form of a leak followed by a perjury trap sham investigation, is unclear. But that Halper saw Flynn not lasting long because “opponents” or “enemies” would seek to “exert pressure” seems strange because Halper supposedly was a Cambridge academic far removed from the D.C. scene. Even stranger is that Halper purported to know how Flynn would react, since Halper has never met Flynn.

How did Halper know any of this? Did Halper have connections in the intelligence community sharing their thoughts on Flynn? Or was Halper hearing things from David Ignatius?

Here, Schrage’s interview with Bartiromo proves enlightening. According to Schrage, Halper often bragged that Ignatius was one of his media contacts. This statement complements Lokhova’s statement to The Federalist that Halper (as well as Andrew) were connected to Ignatius.

In fact, Lokhova told The Federalist that after Halper was outed as a CIA and FBI informant in May 2018, she spoke with Ignatius, and when they spoke, she “registered surprise about Halper’s role” as a CHS. As previously reported, “that prompted Ignatius to say ‘he always found Halper reliable as a source.’ When I said, ‘Wow, he was your source,’ Ignatius hung up. We never spoke again.’”

So maybe intel was flowing two ways between Halper and Ignatius.

Schrage doesn’t know what prompted Halper’s comments, but what he does know he has shared with U.S. Attorney Durham. However, with that investigation dragging on, and Flynn’s case coming before the entire D.C. Circuit Court on Tuesday, Schrage decided to speak out now, telling what he knows.

Schrage, who alerted Durham of his plans to go public, has promised more information will be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead. Hopefully, the same can be said of information coming from the government’s investigation into the Spygate scandal.

Steven Schrage With Maria Bartiromo


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bartiromo; crossfirehurricane; interview; schrage; spygate; stevenschrage
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1 posted on 08/10/2020 7:55:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

We’ll believe it when we see it.

Please. No more stories about “we got them this time!” Crap.

We have all been fooled too many times now.


2 posted on 08/10/2020 7:59:55 AM PDT by CapnJack
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To: Kaslin
...significant revelations will be forthcoming from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the origins of Spygate.

****************

And free beer for everyone -- tomorrow.

3 posted on 08/10/2020 8:01:26 AM PDT by Starboard
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To: Kaslin
So, it would appear Halper has much to say to an investigation.

Has he squealed, or not?

4 posted on 08/10/2020 8:03:19 AM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: CapnJack

I read this entire article by Steven Schrage. I was pleasantly surprised it was penned by Matt Taibbi.

IF they have not arrested some of these clowns at the FBI by now. It will never happen.
I actually thought we were actually going to see at least a couple of lower peeps get thrown under the bus.

Now, like you I would be SHOCKED if anyone ever gets arrested.


5 posted on 08/10/2020 8:09:43 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: Kaslin

The Constitution was abrogated by both parties on Usurpation Day, January 20, 2009.

The usurper then set about using the entire federal government as his personal mafia.

The crimes everyone is talking about are only the last crimes of an eight year crime spree.

Not ONE of our elected OR appointed honored their oath to the Constitution.


6 posted on 08/10/2020 8:09:59 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizens Are Born Here of Citizen Parents|Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: woodbutcher1963

I think we’re in “no D.C. jury will ever vote to convict them so why bother?” mode.


7 posted on 08/10/2020 8:11:19 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Kaslin

My brain is overloaded with “”more information”. It was time to start arresting people - THREE YEARS AGO.


8 posted on 08/10/2020 8:15:26 AM PDT by NTHockey (My rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

You are correct and yet the crimes demand a permanent punishment pour encourager les autres.

If there is no law, then there is no law


9 posted on 08/10/2020 8:16:29 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Progressives are existential American enemies)
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To: Kaslin

The Brits have James Bond, and we have the fat, walrus f*** Stefan Halper

Dear God help us.


10 posted on 08/10/2020 8:18:20 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Kaslin

I smell moose slime Brennan at the root of this frame. Filth at the bottom of the septic tank that is the obamaroid administration. Brennan is delighted to be the dirtiest fecal layer.


11 posted on 08/10/2020 8:18:35 AM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: marktwain

Who put the burr under Dearlove’s saddle to set this inferno in motion? It would require a Brennan, a Clapper, or the obamaroid himself via his flunky Rice..


12 posted on 08/10/2020 8:21:22 AM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensation perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: bert

It’s a real problem. Other than a Constitutional Amendment requiring change of venue/venire for any trial of a Federal employee I can’t see what the answer is.


13 posted on 08/10/2020 8:27:52 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: marktwain

NO ONE has interviewed Halper, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Steele and I forget the 4th of the CAMBRIDGE FOUR!! DEARLOVE!


14 posted on 08/10/2020 9:06:03 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: Kaslin

How about a big, fat SO WHAT?


15 posted on 08/10/2020 9:10:19 AM PDT by pt17
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To: Kaslin
"During his interview with Bartiromo, Schrage added that he wanted a representative of the Trump campaign at the conference to provide balance"

Page and Popadopolus were low level functionaries (if that) to the Trump campaign. But it gave them a back door into the Trump campaign by letting them spy on him AND anyone he had contact with. (a so-called 'one-hop' rule)

16 posted on 08/10/2020 9:40:17 AM PDT by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing obamacare is worse than obamacare itself)
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To: Kaslin

Someone will get stern talking to about this one for sure.


17 posted on 08/10/2020 10:30:53 AM PDT by pas
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To: pas

Lindsay Graham will write another letter no doubt.


18 posted on 08/10/2020 11:10:37 AM PDT by Luke21
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To: Kaslin

I think anyone that thinks Barr and Durham are going to bring it all down is living in fantasy land. Ok...so I’m a pessimist, skeptic, glass is half empty kind of guy...Prove me wrong.

This whole thing and everyone involved are so interconnected that taking down one, takes them all down. And they ain’t gonna let that happen.

Would we all be partying in the streets and popping bottles if they ALL went to prison? ABSOLUTELY.

But it ain’t gonna happen. Too much money, power and influence for any of them to go down.

The saddest part is, we have only ourselves to blame. We’ve been letting these people get away with it all for so long, they expect special treatment and they get it. And that goes down to the local level as well as we can all attest to city councils, county commissions, mayors, etc doing and saying whatever they want and not be held accountable for anything. This corona crap is the perfect example.


19 posted on 08/10/2020 11:29:22 AM PDT by qaz123
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To: Ann Archy
NO ONE has interviewed Halper, Christopher Andrew, Christopher Steele and I forget the 4th of the CAMBRIDGE FOUR!! DEARLOVE!

That may well be.

But how would we know?

20 posted on 08/10/2020 12:31:10 PM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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