{"id":1567188,"date":"2022-07-23T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-23T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1567188"},"modified":"2022-07-23T06:05:52","modified_gmt":"2022-07-23T10:05:52","slug":"judge-says-documents-point-to-stefan-halper-lying-to-fbi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-says-documents-point-to-stefan-halper-lying-to-fbi\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Says Documents Point to Stefan Halper Lying to FBI"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudge-says-documents-point-to-stefan-halper-lying-to-fbi%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1567188&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Evidence that has come to light indicated that British professor Stefan Halper is the confidential source who claimed to the FBI that Gen. Michael Flynn left a meeting in England with a Russian-born academic, a federal judge said recently while rejecting Halper\u2019s attempt to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against him.<\/p>\n<p>Halper has long been identified as one of the spies who passed on information about Donald Trump campaign associates as part of the U.S. government\u2019s investigation into alleged ties between Trump and Russia, which is itself subject to a criminal probe after being found to have been riddled with mistakes. And he has been rumored to be the source of a tip to the FBI about Flynn and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/how-svetlana-lokhova-became-a-casualty-of-spygate-in-her-own-words_3348091.html\">Svetlana Lokhova<\/a>, the Russian-born historian who has lived in Britain for years.<\/p>\n<p>Lokhova sued Halper for defamation in 2019, but the case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had expired and she had not proven her case. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22111830-lokhova-amended-complaint\">an amended complaint<\/a> against Halper can move forward, a U.S. judge said during a July 15 hearing, because evidence points to Halper not only being the FBI\u2019s source, but to lying to the bureau.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are now a fair number of documentations that do, in fact, link your client to being this source,\u201d U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Clinton appointee, told Halper\u2019s attorney Terrance Reed, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also \u201cmore specific information\u201d that Halper \u201cwas, in fact, not present\u201d during an event attended by Flynn and Lokhova in Cambridge in 2014, Brinkema added. That means Halper \u201cmay have made clear misstatements to the FBI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The information \u201cat the pleading stage would seem to be enough to suggest that there may, in fact, be some falsehoods going on here on your client\u2019s behalf,\u201d the judge concluded.<\/p>\n<h2>Tip<\/h2>\n<p>A confidential human source (CHS) relayed an incident \u201cs\/he witnessed\u201d when a person codenamed Crossfire Razor\u2014since identified as Flynn\u2014spoke at the event, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22111916-crossfire-razor-closing\">declassified FBI documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The dinner took place in February 2014\u00a0at Pembroke College in Cambridge, where Lokhova was a graduate student and Halper was employed.<\/p>\n<p>The source said that after Flynn spoke and socialized with attendees, Lokhova joined him in a cab to the train station and also went onto the train with Flynn.<\/p>\n<p>The tip was among the reasons the FBI began to probe Flynn, who was charged with lying to the FBI. The government later withdrew the charge after finding issues with the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>The source also said they were \u201csomewhat suspicious of LOKHOVA\u201d and that they believed Lokhova\u2019s father may be a Russian oligarch living in London.<\/p>\n<p>Lokhova previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/strzok-scrambled-to-keep-flynn-investigation-open-when-fbi-moved-to-close-it-jan-2017_3334106.html\">told The Epoch Times<\/a> that her father is not an oligarch.<\/p>\n<p>Halper did not attend the dinner, according to Lokhova\u2019s complaint. That means he lacked firsthand knowledge, although he apparently did not inform the FBI of that.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found \u201cno derogatory information\u201d about Lokhova in FBI databases, according to the declassified documents.<\/p>\n<p>William Barnett, an FBI agent who investigated the claims, later told U.S. attorney Jeff Jensen that intelligence analysts \u201cdid not locate information to corroborate\u201d the source\u2019s reporting. He also said he found the idea that Flynn left an event either by imself or [redacted] without it being noted \u201cas not plausible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith nothing to corroborate the story, BARNETT thought the information was not accurate,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22111915-william-barnett-summary\">interview summary<\/a> stated.<\/p>\n<p>The summary and the FBI\u2019s description of its finding of derogatory information were two of the pieces of evidence included in the complaint.<\/p>\n<h2>Two Dismissals Before Latest Ruling<\/h2>\n<p>Lokhova first sued Halper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/fbi-informant-fed-media-lies-to-smear-flynn-defamation-lawsuit-alleges_2937045.html\">in 2019<\/a>, along with a number of media companies who had reported the claims about her. Brinkema threw out the complaint, finding that the statute of limitations had expired.<\/p>\n<p>Lokhova filed a fresh complaint in December 2020. It was based on letters Halper sent to Post Hill Press, a publishing company that had entered into a book contract with the plaintiff, and the company\u2019s distributor.<\/p>\n<p>After marketing materials for the book were released ahead of its publication, Halper told the companies that the materials contained defamatory statements. The contract was canceled. Lokhova later self-published the book.<\/p>\n<p>Brinkema ruled that the letters were privileged and could not be cited for litigation purposes, and ordered Lokhova and her lawyer to pay the defendant for allegedly filing a \u201cfrivolous\u201d complaint.<\/p>\n<p>But an appeals court, asked to review the case, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22111859-08a62d61-570d-4c54-adb6-91989d54b015\">overturned the ruling<\/a>. The court\u2019s three-judge panel said the judge applied federal rules that should not have been applied, especially in light of no discovery yet taking place. The panel also found the judge likely violated a rule in imposing monetary sanctions. They remanded the case back to Brinkema.<\/p>\n<p>That led to Halper\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22111922-halper-motion-to-dismiss\">motion to dismiss<\/a> the case and the judge\u2019s recent ruling that the case can move forward.<\/p>\n<p>Halper\u2019s lawyer, Reed, told Brinkema in court that the comments to the publisher and distributor were not defamatory because they were the opinions of Halper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Halper\u2019s opinions about her opinions are still opinions. And so him saying your opinions are false cannot be defamatory because opinions, by definition under the defamation law, are things that cannot be proven true or false largely because they depend on the subjective view of the parties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Leslie McAdoo Gordon, Lokhova\u2019s lawyer, said that if that were the case, then Halper\u2019s description of Lokhova\u2019s statements in the marketing materials could not have been defamatory.<\/p>\n<p>She also pointed out that Halper has never sued Lokhova, even after the book was self-published.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Reed and Mr. Halper certainly must have known when they sent this letter that the things that they\u2019re claiming are defaming him are not defaming him. He just doesn\u2019t want the book published no matter what. And if he can intimidate people into not publishing, then he\u2019ll do it. But if they stand their ground and actually publish, then he doesn\u2019t actually follow through on the defamation suit, which is how we know it\u2019s a sham, it\u2019s false, it\u2019s fake,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cThere is no defamation except by Mr. Halper.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-zachary-stieber\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Zachary Stieber covers U.S. and world news. He is based in Maryland.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evidence that has come to light indicated that British professor Stefan Halper is the confidential source who claimed to the FBI that Gen. Michael Flynn left a meeting in England<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1567188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}