ICYMI, FROM REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: The Curious Case of Stefan Halper, Longtime ‘Zelig’ of American Scandals Who ‘Crossfired’ Trump.
Halper’s undercover operation, which was documented in a report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, would prove largely a bust. Transcripts between Halper and Trump campaign officials would show that none of them took the bait, or appeared to otherwise be soliciting Russia’s help in the 2016 presidential campaign
Even now, it might seem odd that the FBI made Halper, then a septuagenarian Cambridge University professor, a linchpin of its top-secret counterintelligence probe codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.” But a closer look at Halper’s life and work makes that decision seem inevitable. Stefan Halper is the Zelig of modern American political scandal – a chameleon-like, unusually ubiquitous figure who keeps appearing when mischief is afoot.
The former son-in-law of a top CIA official, Halper cut his teeth in the Nixon White House during Watergate. The New York Times identified him as the Reagan campaign’s point man in an alleged effort to spy on President Jimmy Carter, and he was later chairman of a bank that helped provide money to surreptitiously fund Nicaragua’s pro-American contra rebels during the 1980s. In the run-up to his subterfuge in the Trump-Russia caper, Halper was paid more than $1 million by a Pentagon office that produced work deemed of such little value that Sen. Charles Grassley recently identified it as a prime example of the government’s “systemic failure to manage and oversee” spending.
Given the secret nature of his work, it is not surprising that Halper’s exact role in these scandals is still debated by insiders and historians. An examination of long-ignored records by RealClearInvestigations, however, shows that Halper has added to the mystery by appearing to consistently misrepresent his background and experience on resumes. There is, for example, no public evidence for his claim, on a resume he submitted to the Ford White House, that he was class president at Stanford University in 1967, or a Fulbright scholar. Nor is there any for the claim on another resume that he held the prestigious position in the Ford administration listed.
Halper declined to speak with RCI when asked for an interview in person at his Virginia home. He also declined to respond to a letter from this reporter subsequently sent to his attorney, inquiring about discrepancies documented in this article.
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