SUBSTACK | PUBLIC | MATT TAIBBI | FEBRUARY 13, 2024
PHOTO | JOSEPH MIFSUD (LEFT), GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS (CENTER) AND STEFAN HALPER (RIGHT) | SOURCE: PUBLIC ON SUBSTACK | CREDIT: UNKNOWN
Previously released evidence supports the claim that the US IC began investigating Trump before the FBI began its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
The FBI has already admitted that it should not have sought FISA warrants to wiretap Carter Page, a Trump foreign policy advisor. FBI had included in its FISA warrant application for Page noncredible intelligence from a confidential human source (CHS) named Christopher Steele, a former British spy.
A source told Public and Racket that IC officials had targeted Page because they viewed him as inexperienced. “You look at some of the people who were there,” the person said. “They weren’t sophisticated or experienced at disinformation or at [dealing with] IC people planting ideas or befriending you.”
In 2018, HPSCI released a 243-page clearing Trump of allegations that he and his team colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. House Republicans had made a deal with the CIA to place their documents inside a safe within the CIA’s vault.
Sources close to the investigation say that from 2019 to 2020, HSPCI investigators continued working out of a “small room in Langley” and had access to raw logs and communications from agencies like the CIA and the National Security Council (NSC).
The first of the IC’s surveillance targets appeared to be former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) head and would-be Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Cambridge academic Stefan Halper, one of the few outed “confidential human sources” from the Crossfire Hurricane probe, approached Flynn in March 2016.
“The Stefan Halper story is ridiculous,” a source said. “He was the consultant to write papers that really weren’t papers and paid inflated sums like $400,000… He was conducting bumps and intel contacts.”
Halper approached at least four Trump targets in total and was paid $411,575 by the US government in 2016 via the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon office that exists “to pay off spies,” as one source put it.
When asked by Public and Racket if he thought the IC’s surveillance efforts started with him, Flynn said, “It actually did. The crazy thing is I had just gone through a full security clearance update investigation, which had just closed about six months prior. It included a polygraph examination. They knew there was nothing, absolutely nothing.”
A Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud approached or “bumped” another Trump aide named Geroge Papadopoulos.
“Bumping has all kinds of techniques,” Flynn told us. “The purpose is to get compromising material on them in order to then do something with them, use them in some capacity,” or “just to achieve a political end.”
House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee called Mifsud “Kremlin-linked” and a Russian “cutout.” But a source told Public and Racket that Mifsud was “a professor who really worked for MI6.”
MI6 did not respond to requests by Public and Racket for comment.
In his 2019 book, Papadopoulos described what had happened to him as “a British-Australian operation” and “not a Russian operation.”
When asked if the investigation was motivated by desires to influence US foreign policy toward Russia, a source said, “It had nothing to do with our relationship with Russia. It was just leveraging capabilities to undermine an unprepared Trump campaign.”
One of the main motivations of the various individuals involved in the Russia collusion hoax appears to have been to create a cloud of suspicion over Trump.
For example, evidence suggests that the head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, leaked information about the existence of the FISA warrant, which claimed Page was an “agent of a foreign power,” to the Washington Post, in 2017. It was a crucial episode in creating the false perception that the Trump campaign had conspired with the Russian government.
Told about the HPSCI report, Papadopoulos told Public and Racket, “There are so many unanswered questions that the investigations kept covered up…I do believe that the operation will be declassified, should Trump get re-elected, which is why his second term represents an existential threat to the intelligence agencies.”
In response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the FBI released some of the Crossfire Hurricane intelligence in heavily redacted form.
But documents released by journalist John Solomon in his lawsuit against the DOJ, Solomon v. Garland, show that the FBI’s versions do not match Trump’s unreleased declassified documents. Those documents include the FBI’s notes on its investigation into Page and interview with Steele.
HPSCI investigators tried to get their report declassified before Trump left office, but the CIA “would not cooperate” and “rebuffed” them “at every turn,” a source said.
The investigators had “created a binder that blew up the assessment but couldn’t get it out because the CIA controlled it,” said a source. The investigation had to be done “at their spaces,” and the CIA “monitored” investigators. The CIA always had a “minder” present while they worked on the report.
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Last Updated on February 23, 2024 by Real KBrett