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Stefan Halper, 73, a former White House official, is a life fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and until recently was a prominent participant in the intelligence seminars. “Halper told reporters he had seen me leaving the dinner with Flynn,” thetimes.co.uk/article/svetla…
“Halper, a foreign policy specialist and wealthy former banker, has since been widely named in US media as the FBI informant who infiltrated Trump’s presidential campaign and reported back on its links with Russia.”
“Although Halper is a lifelong Republican, Lokhova describes him as “an unreconstructed Cold War Russia hater” who appears to have become alarmed by the Trump campaign’s willingness to deal with Moscow. Halper’s whereabouts are unknown”
Lokhova “regards herself as “collateral damage” in the rush to pin something fatal on Trump. She blames Halper for dragging her into the collusion affair to the point where she is beginning to despair that she can extricate herself undamaged.”
“Of Halper, she adds: “He’s a big man, quite sweaty, and very, very unpleasant. He would come to my lectures, spread himself out in the front row, then fall asleep, snoring loudly. I avoided him like the plague because he was rude all the time.”
“Lokhova believes that malevolent tips originating from Halper were behind a series of news reports that raised questions about her ability to access Russian intelligence archives and exaggerated the extent of her contacts with Flynn.”
“The Guardian wrote of her “trusted access to Russian spy agency records” and quoted one Russian historian as claiming that “getting into the actual GRU [Russian military intelligence] archive is basically impossible”.
” When Lokhova complained at the implication she must have had insider access to Russian intelligence, The Guardian published a “clarification”, noting that “there is no suggestion that Lokhova has ever worked with or for any of the Russian intelligence agencies”.
“When her name was first linked to Flynn, she says, a couple of US reporters told her: “‘We’re not after you, we want to get Flynn.’ So why should my name be plastered across the newspapers?”
“The New York Times and The Washington Post both sent crack reporters to investigate... Social media dispensed with legal and factual niceties: she was widely portrayed online as a Russian “honeypot” in Putin’s pay — a Mata Hari for the modern age.”
“They were throwing all sorts of things at me — love, sex, money. Obviously, I reject them all,” she says. “I just want to add that I’ve never been interviewed by any authorities and clearly if there were any doubts about who I am and what I do, I would have been [interrogated].”
” I should be able to go on with my research without having my life turned upside down. Instead I’m still having to explain myself, while Halper is in hiding.”
“She has made formal complaints about Halper’s behaviour to Magdalene College and to her constituency MP, and has written to Theresa May. “Either I’m a Russian spy and there are genuine concerns, or Halper is crazy and a liar,” she says.”
The lessons from Lokhova’s experience are obvious. If you become involved in the intelligence world, don’t be a Russian, don’t be a woman and don’t be clever. You will become a sitting duck for fantasists and misogynists and both friends and foes of Trump.
