While working as a spy for the FBI, Stefan Halper interacted on multiple occasions with the media, both on the record and, according to a University of Cambridge researcher, as an anonymous background source.
Those media interactions, which occurred between December 2016 and March 2017, could be cause for concern for the FBI, according to two retired senior bureau officials who worked closely with confidential informants during their careers.
“This is something that is highly irregular and not something that I would have ever tolerated with any of the folks working for me,” retired FBI investigator and CNN analyst James Gagliano told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The road is fraught with peril when somebody is speaking off the cuff or speaking to the media and putting themselves in a position where that can then be used as discovery material when we do bring a case.”
Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund President Ron Hosko, a former assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division, added that an informant’s interactions with the press could create circular reporting that would serve to make their information “appear more valuable or more true” than it actually is.
Halper, a former professor at Cambridge with extensive ties to the CIA and MI6, was quoted on the record for a Dec.16, 2016 article at the Financial Times about alleged Russian infiltration of the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, a forum that convenes academics and current and former spies to discuss intelligence issues.
Halper, 73, told the Financial Times that he resigned from the organization due to “unacceptable Russian influence on the group.” But the evidence of Russian penetration was thin, and another Cambridge professor, Christopher Andrew, dismissed Halper’s complaints as “absurd.” – READ MORE
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