Revisiting Stefan Halper’s Role in Crossfire Hurricane: New Evidence, Old Injustices

The role of Stefan Halper, the FBI's shady confidential human source in the Russiagate scandal, has been well-documented. However, despite the seriousness of these revelations, there has been no accountability. With President Trump back in office and a genuine opportunity for redemption, it is time to revisit this story and remind the public of the unresolved questions and corrupt actions, some of which remain cloaked in secrecy. Furthermore, a new, previously unreported piece of information has emerged, underscoring the necessity of bringing transparency and accountability to this troubling chapter of FBI misconduct and injustice.

Although Halper was not an original member of Crossfire Hurricane, he was integrated into the operation in August 2016, supposedly at the suggestion of FBI Agent Stephen Somma, who had worked with Halper since 2011. Just two weeks after Crossfire Hurricane was launched on July 31, 2016, Halper joined the team and quickly provided the FBI with information on three Trump campaign members under investigation: Carter Page, Michael Flynn, and Paul Manafort.

The idea that Halper’s swift integration into Crossfire Hurricane—and thus into the Russia collusion scam—may not have been as coincidental as Somma suggests is highlighted by a statement made five years ago by Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his report on the FBI’s misuse of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants in the Page case. To fully appreciate how absurdly contrived the Halper origin story now seems, it’s worth revisiting Horowitz’s full statement:

“In addition, [Halper] told the Crossfire Hurricane team that [Halper] had known Trump's then campaign manager, Manafort, for a number of years and that he had been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn. [Somma] told [Horowitz] that "quite honestly…we kind of stumbled upon [Halper] knowing these folks." He said that it was "serendipitous" and that the Crossfire Hurricane team "couldn't believe [their] luck" that [Halper] had contacts with three of their four subjects, including Carter Page.”

In simple terms, we’re expected to believe that the FBI agent assigned to Crossfire Hurricane just happened to know someone with inside information on three of the FBI’s four targets—Page, Flynn, and Manafort. Halper would later arrange several meetings under false pretenses with the remaining target, George Papadopoulos, making it four out of four. You’d have a better chance of finding a penguin selling sunscreen in the Sahara than believing Halper stumbled into Crossfire Hurricane by pure chance.

Page

Perhaps the most comprehensive of Halper’s smears against the four Trump advisors involves Page. In this regard, our friend Stephen McIntyre recently uncovered previously unreported information: Among Halper’s other fabrications, he also lied to the FBI about Page’s alleged interactions with Russian tycoon Igor Sechin.

It has been known for at least eight years that the fraudulent dossier author, Christopher Steele, falsely claimed Page met Sechin during a 2016 trip to Moscow. According to Steele, Sechin—CEO of the Russian energy giant Rosneft—had promised Page a substantial payment in the tens of millions if Page succeeded in getting sanctions on Rosneft lifted. The problem with this story is that it was entirely fabricated. Not only was there no offer, but Page never even met Sechin.

Halper must have come across this fantastical accusation in the dossier, which by late 2016 was circulating within Washington, D.C. circles, and decided to stoke the flames of this false narrative. In December 2016, Halper conveniently informed Agent Somma that Page had indeed met Sechin, effectively adding a second, albeit fictitious, data stream to the false story.

Incredibly, despite knowing the story was fabricated—because they had recorded Halper’s conversation with Page, where no meeting with Sechin was ever mentioned, and knew that Page had previously, in another recorded conversation with Halper, explicitly denied ever meeting Sechin—the FBI nonetheless proceeded with renewing their FISA warrants against Page. They failed to inform the FISA court of Halper’s lies and have never held him accountable

Halper's other interactions with Page have been widely reported, but it is worth briefly recapping that just weeks before the FBI's meetings with Halper in August 2016, Page attended a Cambridge symposium organized by Halper. The event, which remains shrouded in mystery, featured prominent figures such as Madeleine Albright and former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, both of whom had connections to Halper and to Steele, the author of the fraudulent dossier.

Page's trip to Moscow in July 2016, which coincided with the Cambridge event, would later play a significant role in the Steele dossier. After the symposium, Halper befriended Page under false pretenses and invited him to several gatherings, which were secretly recorded by the FBI. It is important to note that Page never uttered a single incriminating word. Instead, he made numerous exculpatory statements, including his claim of never having met Sechin. All of this was concealed from the FISA court.

Halper’s actions and the FBI’s reliance on him reveal a troubling pattern of misconduct and a complete lack of oversight. The Crossfire Hurricane team’s willingness to cover up exculpatory evidence while actively using information from Halper, which they knew to be false, underscores a deep corruption that has yet to be addressed.

While Horowitz’s December 2019 report on FISA abuse identified several instances of FBI misconduct, it failed to address the full scope of the institutional cover-up and notably omitted Halper’s December 2016 falsehood regarding Sechin.

Flynn

While Halper’s interactions with Page were the most extensive among his targets, the most important with respect to how history unravelled was Halper’s role in targeting Flynn. During his meetings with the Crossfire Hurricane team in August 2016, Halper recounted an alleged incident involving Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova, a Russian-born British citizen, at a Cambridge Intelligence Seminar in 2014. Halper asserted that Flynn left a university dinner with Lokhova and traveled with her to London. This account, later characterized by FBI Special Agent William Barnett as “not accurate,” lacked corroboration but nonetheless served as the basis for a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) investigation into Flynn, which was initiated on August 16, 2016.

The FBI's acceptance of Halper's unverified claims exemplifies the corrupt process underlying the entire investigation. Halper's allegations, which both Lokhova and Flynn vehemently denied, were contradicted by witnesses, including Defense Intelligence Agency official Dan O'Brien and Lokhova's partner, David North. Furthermore, even Halper's presence at the Cambridge dinner has been disputed, which should have raised additional questions about his credibility, or total lack thereof.

When Lokhova later sued Halper, his legal team—presumably funded by taxpayers—successfully shielded him from accountability by citing his designation as a confidential human source. The FBI used the same tactic to conceal the existence of Igor Danchenko, the Washington D.C.-based operative who assisted Steele in crafting the fraudulent dossier.

Despite his obvious lies, Halper’s story gained traction, fueling anti-Flynn media narratives during a pivotal period of the Trump campaign and early presidency. Flynn never recovered from being targeted by fabricated stories and soon lost his job as national security advisor. This was compounded when FBI Director James Comey, apparently without Halper’s involvement this time, concocted a fake story that Flynn had lied to FBI agents—which he did not.

Manafort

Halper told the FBI during their August 2016 meetings that he had known Manafort for “over 30 years and had worked with him on several political campaigns.” He even offered to reach out to Manafort, presumably to fabricate false stories to feed back to the FBI. However, those meetings never took place. On August 19, Manafort was fired from the Trump campaign after the New York Times ran a smear story about his dealings in Ukraine—a story based on a fabricated ledger supplied by Ukrainian anti-Trump operatives. With Manafort’s departure, he became a low priority. The effort to pressure him into making damaging statements about Trump was only resurrected much later by Robert Mueller and his team of inquisitors.

Papadopoulos

As previously mentioned, Halper initially had no stories to offer the FBI about Papadopoulos. However, he soon sought to change that. Just weeks after joining the Crossfire Hurricane team, Halper lured Papadopoulos to London under the false pretense of commissioning a research paper on energy policy—Papadopoulos’s area of expertise. This was part of an entrapment scheme designed to elicit statements that the FBI, which was recording their conversations, could later use against Trump.

Halper’s scheme also involved a “honey pot” operative going by the fake name Azra Turk, who posed as his secretary. It remains unclear whether, as with Carter Page, Halper fabricated stories about what Papadopoulos supposedly said. However, a careful examination of the transcripts of their conversations—released in 2020 under congressional pressure—shows that Papadopoulos not only did not say anything remotely incriminating but also made a series of exculpatory statements.

For instance, when Halper bragged about his extensive contacts with Russian intelligence and suggested that Russia could aid the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos didn’t take the bait. Instead, he pushed back forcefully, stating: “As a campaign, of course, we don’t advocate for this type of activity because at the end of the day it’s illegal.”

Clovis

Astonishingly, Halper also went after Sam Clovis, the Trump campaign’s foreign policy director. As with the others, Halper arranged a meeting under false pretenses, this time pretending to be a Trump supporter eager to assist the campaign. However, this wasn’t just entrapment aimed at getting Clovis to say something damaging to Trump or to twist his words in an effort to bolster the Russia collusion narrative. Halper crossed into outright espionage, probing Clovis for internal campaign strategies—information that could have easily been weaponized by the Clinton campaign.

Halper also pressed Clovis on the possibility of an October surprise, which Clovis immediately dismissed. Yet again, as with Halper’s other targets, all the conversations produced exculpatory evidence and statements. Despite this, none of that evidence was ever presented to the FISA court. Instead, the court was fed a Russia collusion narrative that both Halper and the FBI not only knew to be false but had, in some instances, fabricated themselves.

Revisiting the Revelations

Revisiting Halper’s role in Crossfire Hurricane is not merely an exercise in recounting past misdeeds. It is a call to action to address unresolved issues and prevent future abuses. The FBI’s reliance on a corrupt sources like Halper, combined with their failure to verify even the most basic information, had profound consequences for the individuals targeted and for public trust in federal institutions.

The lack of accountability since these revelations came to light many years ago is unacceptable. It is imperative that the new Trump administration, in particular the Department of Justice, take concrete steps to investigate and rectify the systemic issues exposed in relation to Halper. Until then, the shadow of Crossfire Hurricane will continue to loom over the credibility of our justice system.