Thread by @themarketswork

Stefan Halper’s Role in Crossfire Hurricane More Significant than Previously known

Halper’s information, later described by an FBI agent as “not accurate,” likely initiated FBI probe into Flynn

Halper volunteered info on 3 members of Trump campaign
theepochtimes.com/stefan-halpers…

2) By 8-10-16, the FBI had conducted an initial analysis of links between Trump campaign members & Russia.

Based on this, the FBI made the decision to open FARA cases on 3 individuals—Papadopoulos, Page, and Manafort.

Flynn was not considered a part of the CFH investigation.

3) The opening of FARA cases against the 3 members of the Trump campaign took place on the day prior to the FBI’s meetings with Halper.

Not until after FBI’s meetings w/Halper, where he provided FBI w/false story on Flynn, did FBI decide to open FARA case on Flynn on 8-16-16

4) Halper asked if FBI had interest in Page—whose name had not been mentioned up to this point.

Halper had recently met Page during two separate meetings.

Meanwhile, the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Page months earlier (April 2016) out of their NYFO.

5) The second meeting between Halper & Page took place one day prior to a July 19, 2016, memo in the Steele dossier that claimed Page had held “secret meetings in Moscow”

Page would be contacted one week later by a Wall Street Journal reporter who inquired on these meetings.

6) Page had asked Halper about joining the campaign. Halper told the FBI he “was willing to assist with the ongoing investigation and to not notify the Trump campaign about [his] decision not to join.”

Halper agreed to continue a dialogue with Page “for the benefit of the FBI”.

7) On April 6, 2016, The FBI’s NYFO opened an investigation on Carter Page.

Despite Page’s role w/campaign, the investigation was not designated a sensitive investigative matter.

In the week prior to FBI's meeting with Halper the CFH team began to ask for information on Page.

8) On Aug. 10, 2016, the day before his meeting with Halper, FBI Agent Stephen Somma received “an attachment titled "Carter Page-Profile”

The profile quoted the EC regarding Page’s “statements to the FBI about his contact with the other [CIA] U.S. government agency”

9) The FBI ignored the potentially exonerating info on Page.

Three days after the FBI’s meeting with Halper, Somma emailed a written summary on Carter Page believing that the information in his email was sufficient to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Page.

Thus FISA was denied.

10) Halper told the FBI of an incident he claimed took place involving Flynn and @RealSLokhova, at an event at Cambridge Intelligence Seminar in 2014.

The FBI would later discover this story was almost certainly false.

Both Flynn & Lokhova have emphatically denied the story.

11) Halper’s presence at the Cambridge dinner has been repeatedly disputed.

Lokhova has repeatedly stated that Halper was not at the dinner where the incident supposedly took place.

Stephen Schrage, who studied under Halper, has also stated that Halper was not present.

12) Halper had taught at Cambridge and co-founded the Intelligence Seminar w/Dearlove, whom Halper has reportedly known since 2004, along w/Christopher Andrews, the MI5 historian.

All three men contributed in various ways to breathing false life into the Flynn-Lokhova story.

13) Halper through his tales to the FBI.

Dearlove claimed he was “disconcerted by the attention the then-DIA chief showed to a Russian-born graduate student.”

Andrews, a one-time mentor to Lokhova, wrote of Flynn’s firing in Feb 17 and suggested involvement w/a Russian student.

14) Although Halper's story seems to be one that could quickly be disproven, the FBI appeared to accept Halper’s story at face value.

Following their meeting with Halper, the FBI initiated a formal investigation into General Flynn, opening a FARA investigation on Aug. 16, 2016.

15) One day later the Trump campaign received a briefing by the DNI on foreign threats

The FBI also participated in the meeting. The IG report notes that the meeting was seen by the FBI as an opportunity to gain information for its investigations—because Flynn was in attendance.

16) Agent Somma later told IG that “quite honestly … we kind of stumbled upon [Halper] knowing these folks.”

Somma said “it was ‘serendipitous’ and that CFH team ‘couldn’t believe [their] luck’ that Halper had contacts with three of their four subjects, including Carter Page.”

17) Somma’s comments regarding the FBI’s “four subjects” are particularly worth noting as it does not appear that Flynn was a subject of Crossfire Hurricane—or perhaps even directly on the FBI’s radar—until AFTER the FBI had their meeting with Halper.

/END