Svetlana Lokhova On Stefan Halper's Spying

Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian born Cambridge historian who was smeared by the very creepy Stefan Halper with regard to Michael Flynn, has two Twitter threads up that provide extensive detail that strongly indicates that Halper was feeding "information" to Steele. Lokhova also illustrates that Halper's reporting was essentially laundered through Steele, almost certainly to make it appear that information was being provided by the former MI6 officer rather than by a CIA/FBI asset who was targeting the Trump campaign and Trump associates before the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was opened. I want to highlight just a few of Lokhova's points from her detail rich threads.

In the first thread, Lokhova begins from a letter that Senator Grassley sent to the DoD IG, Glenn Fine. In the letter Grassley asks for information regarding the "loose accounting" of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and, in particular, the dates and amounts of money paid by ONA to Stefan Halper for alleged "reports" Halper was providing to ONA. So, Lokhova writes:

Halper gets first Spygate contract from DoD in Sept 2015, draws expenses in Dec 2015, incl. trip to London. He is claiming he’s going to speak with “former Russian intelligence officers”, likely to manufacture lies about Flynn who previously cooperated with Ru intel under Obama/2

That's very interesting, in that it demonstrates that Halper was being targeted against Trump associates as early as September, 2015. Lokhova is probably correct in assuming that Flynn was the target at this point. By September, 2015, there was almost certainly a CI investigation already open on Flynn, but note: 1) Trump would not have been warned about this--whereas Clinton would have been warned in similar circumstances; 2) the predication for the investigation would have been bogus (nonsense like Flynn attending the RT dinner, etc.); 3) while this was probably part of the Intelligence Community's (and especially John Brennan's) jihad against Flynn, the notion of pursuing someone associated with a presidential campaign in this baseless way should give any reasonable person pause.

But the really interesting question is, who exactly were these "former Russian intelligence officers" that Halper was going to speak with? Cambridge can't be crawling with high level former Russian IOs. One suspects there was only one who would ever be named, and that would be Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Trubnikov co-taught a seminar with Halper and later shows up in Steele's dossier. But Trubnikov is really just a name. Naming him doesn't necessarily even mean that Trubnikov knew how he was being used, nor that Halper ever discussed his real business with Trubnikov.

Lokhova is understandably focused on Halper's Flynn-related smears against her, but she does also raise some fascinating points with regard to Carter Page's role in the Steele dossier. In the past I've pointed out how Page doesn't appear to have generated a huge amount of interest from the Deep State--until he flew to Moscow in mid July, 2016, to deliver a commencement address (was that a setup?). Halper and Page were long time acquaintances. On his return from Moscow Page traveled through the UK, where he met with Halper. Presto! Within days, Steele is suddenly all over Page as the connection between the Trump campaign and "the Russians," and the WSJ contacts Page about his supposed contacts in Moscow with Putin allies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to suspect that it's Halper feeding both streams of reporting--overt and covert. Moreover, in a WaPo article by Deep State operative/reporter David Ignatius (of Flynn leak fame) the former head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, praises both Steele and Halper, seeming to associate them.

Regarding all this Lokhova makes two observations:

UPDATED: Bongino: Was Stefan Halper Part Of The Steele "Dossier" Team?

Dan Bongino, last Friday, put out a story on his show that has serious support. It's based on information that is now largely public source--he says he heard it before, but now that it's out there he can talk about it openly. Elizabeth Vaughan at Red State has an excellent summary of what Bongino and others (Stephen McIntyre, Sara Carter, ...) have been talking about--Dan Bongino Deconstructs Latest NY Times Attempt to Sterilize IG Report and Makes a Stunning Connection.

The basic idea is simple enough. We'll take it one step at a time.

Stefan Halper is a CIA operative, paid at least in part through money he gets for doing "research" for the Office of Net Assessment (ONA). He flits (if that describes the movements of someone as fat as Halper) back and forth between Cambridge University and the US--conducting intelligence related seminars as an "academic" and doing "research" for ONA. In that capacity he's known to have contacts with Russian emigres in England.

Christopher Steele is reported in the new Glenn Simpson/Peter Fritsch book--Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump--to have received information that found its way into Steele's "dossier" on Trump from 2nd and 3rd hand "sources." That of itself isn't news. I recently raised again the point that the FBI, back in January, 2017, knew that the Steele dossier was bogus because they had interviewed some of Steele's sources, and the different accounts they received didn't hang together. With that in mind, Vaughan calls our attention to Bruce Ohr's testimony:

Of Whistleblowers And The Office Of Net Assessment

During the past month I've twice written about DoD's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). These mentions have been in the overall context of the Michael Flynn aspect of the Russia Hoax. It's long been known that Stefan Halper, the CIA/FBI operative who was used to smear Michael Flynn as a Russian agent with false accusations that Flynn had had an affair with a Russian emigre professor in England, has had a relationship with ONA. Those who follow intel matters have also had ONA on their radar for a number of years. What really shook things loose was the bombshell that Sidney Powell, Flynn's attorney, set off in one of her recent filings, which I quoted in Can't Recommend Highly Enough:

Stefan Halper is a known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI. He was paid exorbitant sums by the FBI/CIA/DOD through the Department of Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment in 2016. His tasks seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent) Flynn met at an official dinner at Cambridge University when he was head of DIA in 2014. Flynn has requested the records of Col. James Baker because he was Halper’s ‘handler’ in the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, and ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls to Ignatius. The defense has requested the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter Ignatius—especially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of ‘take the kill shot on Flynn.’ It cannot escape mention that the press has long had transcripts of the Kislyak calls that the government has denied to the defense.

The Col. James Baker in question here is James H. Baker--not the James A. Baker who was General Counsel for the FBI under disgraced former FBI Director James Comey. In the linked blog I provide a link to an article by Margot Cleveland that provides all the detail you could desire regarding the whole sordid plot to smear and frame both Flynn and the Russian professor--Svetlana Lokhova. You've no doubt read about it, but Cleveland's article is a handy reference. I concluded my blog:

So, David Ignatius at WaPo has been completely exposed [by Sidney Powell] as a Deep State operative. Next question: Who are the other journos who will be exposed? We need to know all of that.

ADDENDUM: Nothing could be more clear at this point than this: The Russia Hoax never could have happened without massive, near total, complicity on the part of the MSM with the Deep State of federal Intel-related agencies. NYT, WaPo, CNN, DoS, CIA, FBI, DoJ, NSC--that's a beginning of your Russia Hoax alphabet soup. And of course we can now add in SSCI and assorted other Congressional actors as well as the top levels of the military--especially including McMaster.

Hatchet job? Barr needs a chain saw.

More recently in Looks Like Durham's Doing A Deep Dive On The Deep State I looked at reports that John Durham's interest in Stefan Halper has apparently led him to target ONA:

Looks Like Durham's Doing A Deep Dive On The Deep State

Sara Carter is reporting this afternoon that Barr's Russia Hoax prosecutor of choice, John Durham is questioning personnel at the Office of Net Assessment about Stefan Halper (Carter misspells Halper's first name). The ONA is about as Deep State as it comes. Here's Wikipedia's description:

The United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) was created in 1973 by Richard Nixon to serve as the Pentagon's "internal think tank" that "looks 20 to 30 years into the military's future, often with the assistance of outside contractors, and produces reports on the results of its research". The Director of Net Assessment is the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense on net assessment.

Apparently ONA was used to launder payments to high level, or supposedly high level, CIA operatives. Like Stefan Halper, who was paid over a million dollars by the Obama administration through ONA for doing only God knows what.

This could signal a major expansion of Durham's investigation, as Carter suggests: Durham Probe Expands to Pentagon Office That Contracted FBI Spy Stephan Halper, although "FBI spy" is probably not the most accurate characterization. I suspect Halper was more or less on loan to the FBI. Here's what Carter's sources have told her:

Justice Department prosecutor U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel connected to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, which awarded multiple contracts to FBI informant Stephan Halper. Halper, who was informing the bureau on Trump campaign advisors, is a central figure in the FBI’s original investigation into President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, SaraACarter.com has learned.

These latest developments reveal the expansive nature of what is now a Justice Department criminal probe into the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign. ... 

Multiple sources confirmed to this news site that Durham has spoken extensively with sources working in the Office of Net Assessment, as well as outside contractors, that were paid through Pentagon office. 

Senator Chuck Grassley is also in on the action. Grassley now heads the Senate Finance Committee, which has learned that--get ready for this--ONA kept sloppy records about their payments. As if a money laundering operation for CIA sources would keep in depth and accurate records! That would violate deniability, which is a far higher bureaucratic principle than the Constitutional principle of Legislative oversight. Carter reports: