Was Halper Keeping Tabs on Carter Page for the CIA?

threw this in Skunkworks because this is purely me thinking aloud here. Let's consider a few things:

1. Stefan Halper has a history of being a CIA operative. What is being recently remembered (and the irony is not lost here) is that Halper apparently managed apparently ex-CIA agents who were actually implanted INSIDE the Carter campaign during the 1980 election.

REAGAN AIDES DESCRIBE OPERATION TO GATHER INSIDE DATA ON CARTER

The sources identified Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge. Mr. Halper, until recently deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs and now chairman of the Palmer National Bank in Washington, was out of town today and could not be reached. But Ray S. Cline, his father-in-law, a former senior Central Intelligence official, rejected the account as a ''romantic fallacy.''

Mr. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence, who was Mr. Reagan's campaign director, said in an interview Tuesday that such a surpise was of special concern to Reagan strategists. He said Mr. Garrick had spoken of using retired military officers to watch military airfields for the dispatching of hospital aircraft for the hostages. A source from the Reagan campaign who asked not to be named said, ''There was some C.I.A. stuff coming from Halper, and some agency guys were hired.'' He added that he was never aware that this information was particularly useful and that he and others had their own sources within the Administration who provided unsolicited information. Receipt of Security Papers

The gist of what appears to have been happening here is that they were tasked with stealing foreign policy documents and then exfiltrating them to the Reagan campaign so that Reagan wouldn't be caught off guard. Lots of CIA people including George Bush, William Casey, etc involved here. Halper's former father-in-law was the head of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence in the 60's.

Somehow this scandal is largely forgotten.

2. There were the rumblings about threatening ongoing operations by identifying Halper. That implies that he was already doing other things for the USIC.

3. Then there's Halper's decade plus tenure at Cambridge. It smells like a well developed cover that would keep Halper active in circles with foreign policy people, diplomats, etc. Excellent cover to travel, meet people, etc. He's also apparently tight with ex MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove. Both were part of the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar until they resigned in late 2016, Halper citing, "unacceptable Russian influence" over the group.

4. On July 7th of 2017, Carter Page made a trip to Moscow to give a very pro-Kremlin speech which caused a lot of controversy. At the time, there was a lot of speculation about him having meetings with high-level Kremlin officials. He was even asked at the event if he would be doing so by a Russian reporter to which he gave a coy, suggestive response.

Carter Page wasn't an unknown to the IC. As we all know, an SVR spy ring had tried to recruit him though after he was approached by the feds, he cooperated. That didn't seem to substantially change the nature of his interactions though.

5. A few days later, he was at a symposium (Race to Change the World, with a theme of the 2016 presidential election and future foreign policy) to which he'd been invited by Stefan Halper. It's not precisely clear the circumstances for this invitation but presumably, this would have occurred in June or possibly May (Carter couldn't remember in the interview I saw).

6. WikiLeaks starts dropping emails on July 22nd. Somewhere between the announcement of the DNC hack in mid-June and July 31st, Downer puts two and two together with the GP conversation from May and reaches out to the US.

7. The FBI counterintelligence investigation opens July 31, 2016.

8. A month later, Halper meets for coffee with Clovis. According to Clovis they basically just talked shop, with Halper talking about China quite a bit. (which is apparently a specific area of expertise for him) In a very recent interview, Clovis said there was nothing suspicious but in hindsight, he wonders if Page was his in to Clovis and Clovis was in turn, his in to reach out to Papadopoulos.

9. On Sept 2nd, Halper offers to pay Papadopoulos to write a paper on Mediterranean oil fields and invites him to London. Eventually paying for his flight and hotel.

10. Now in London on Sept 15th, Halper meets with Papadopoulos at the Traveler's Club, a centuries old private watering hold frequented by diplomats and spies. At this meeting, from accounts, Halper allegedly is pretty brazen about asking Papadopoulos about Russian interference, the hack, whatever. Reportedly, it was enough to set off some alarm bells for GP who had just gone through this month's long dance with Misfud, Olga the Russian temptress and the "MFA Connection" in Russia.

11. I've long suspected that Papadopoulos was the target of an SVR op. One of those reasons is that on their 2nd meeting, Misfud brought along this "very attractive" 30 year-old Russian woman who Misfud told Papadopoulos was "Putin's niece" and later promised to set him up with high-level meetings with Kremlin officials through her familial connections. That to me reeks of tradecraft.

12. Speaking of tradecraft and curiously present women, it's also reported that at Halper's meeting with Papadopoulos, Halper brought along a Turkish woman named Azra Turk who was identified as his assistant. It's not entirely clear from the reporting and this is all third hand ("sources familiar with Papadopoulos's account") but at some point it sounds like Azra Turk and Papadopoulos were having drinks, possibly separate from the Halper meeting and she similarly brought up Russian interference.

All of the accounts also say that Papadopoulos said she was very flirty with him then and in later communications. And it's also reported (a lot of this about the meeting is from Chuck Ross's reporting in March) that she tried to meet up with him in Chicago (where he lives) at some point not too long after he returned.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Azra Turk is also a "very attractive" woman. Notice the pattern? Once again, this smells like tradecraft to me.

13. As far as we know, there was no further contact with Papadopoulos and only a single meeting with Clovis. On the other hand, even though Cater Page left the campaign at the end of September, Halper continued corresponding with Carter Page well into the Summer of 2017. According to Page, nothing about his approach/their communications set off any alarm bells. As with Clovis, their interactions appear to be basically just shop talk, scholarly foreign policy discussion.

14. Finally, there's the question of why Halper? How does Halper end up as an informant for the FBI's counterintelligence investigation?

I think that a plausible conclusion is that a) Halper was based out of London where the Papadopoulos was living for some period through May at least (though apparently by September he was living in Chicago). It also seems quite possible that Halper has been a longtime CIA asset.

When Carter Page was first announced as a FP advisor, there were a smattering of articles like this:

Trump’s New Russia Adviser Has Deep Ties to Kremlin’s Gazprom

I can't imagine that if reporters were digging around Carter Page's business dealings, that the CIA failed to notice his appointment. There also seems to be a starkly different approach with the three men Halper was in contact with, assuming that the reported Papadopoulos accounts of his interactions with Halper and Azra Turk are accurate. With Page and Clovis, it was a far more passive approach. With Papadopoulos, he's offering him work, introducing him to this flirty woman who tries to hook up with him and most importantly, both immediately start probing him about Russian interference.

It occurred to me that maybe Carter Page had become a CIA asset himself but I don't think so. We know that he was subject to multiple FISA warrants. If he was a CIA asset, I think the CIA would have quashed that if they got wind of it and we know that there was some interagency cooperation. (in fact, I suspect Halper was basically a retasked CIA asset) He's got a very big mouth that he opens very publicly. His pro-Kremlin bent would make a good cover but he's also introduced information that has caused questions. He's the one who has revealed all these details about the symposium, the contacts throughout 2017, etc for instance. Also, he's clearly turned over emails to DC which they've published.

So in summation, it seems to me that Halper was a CIA asset, that the CIA was probably sniffing around Carter Page before the FBI became interested in Papadopoulos and that when they FBI powwowed with the CIA, he was a natural choice to retask to probe Papadopoulos.

It's an interesting theory I have seen in other blogs. They went in far more detail but no names were mentioned as far as "assets" were concerned. I wish I could remember which site I read.

I am more concerned about the name-dropping of an American operative, if that is indeed Halper. Way more sinister then Plame, IMO.

It's a very well thought out OP that I think warrants more than cursory glance.

a reply to: IcanXplain

Halper's name first appeared in a March article by Chuck Ross about his interactions with George Papadopoulos. That article is chock full of very specific details, including quote, dates, amounts, locations, etc — and of course names.

It's a whole lot of detail considering the sources:

"according to a source familiar with Papadopoulos’s thinking"
"According to a source with knowledge of the meeting"

Chuck Ross also knew on March 25th that Halper had met with two other members of the Trump campaign. Seems likely that this was all information that somebody wanted out that was served up on a platter.

April 4th, Nunes sends a letter, demanding an unredacted copy of documents from the origins of the FBI investigation. Within days of that, we start hearing specifically about an FBI informant's name that being redacted.

Smells like something coordinated.

The Daily Caller is just some mouthpiece for propaganda. The "workings of this administration", on the other hand, deserves the full blunt of the DOJ.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Great thread!

I’m a bit indisposed at the moment but I think what you outline makes sense

Or maybe Halper just has a fetish for spying on guys named carter.

a reply to: theantediluvian

For a spy outfit, they weren't very sneaky about any of this. It had to be pretty easy to see Halper coming a mile away and a simple search of his name on the Internet should have told you all you needed to know about the man.

"Hey, I know you don't know me, but how about them Clinton Emails? Sure would be nice to have them, huh?". Have you met Svetlana? She's a fashion model and Putins Neice. Plus I hear she's a nympho. She asked me to introduce you.

Throw in a couple very attractive foreign chick's and it's a Bond movie.

These people are stupid.