Informant Identified

Now that his name has been reported by several other news organizations, The Washington Post is offering a profile of Stefan Halper, the professor who helped the FBI with its investigation of Trump campaign advisors' contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign.

[Halper] is a well-connected veteran of past GOP administrations who convened senior intelligence officials for seminars at the University of Cambridge in England.

In the summer and fall of 2016, Halper, then an emeritus professor at Cambridge, contacted three Trump campaign advisers for brief talks and meetings that largely centered on foreign policy, The Washington Post reported last week.

At some point that year, he began working as a secret informant for the FBI as it investigated Russia’s interference in the campaign ...

The Post says both Halper, 73, and the FBI refused to comment for its piece.

In recent days, Trump has seized on the reports about Halper’s role in the Russia probe, suggesting in tweets that the FBI improperly spied on his campaign. There is no evidence to suggest Halper was inserted into the Trump campaign, but he did engage in a pattern of seeking out and meeting three Trump advisers.

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Halper’s connections to the intelligence world have been present throughout his career and at Cambridge, where he ran an intelligence seminar that brought together past and present intelligence officials.

In 2014, Halper, along with Richard Dearlove, the former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, sponsored a session of the seminar that drew Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who would go on to serve as Trump’s first national security adviser.

Halper taught international affairs and American studies at Cambridge from 2001 until 2015, when he stepped down with the honorary title of emeritus senior fellow of the Centre of International Studies, according to a spokesman for the university.

Since 2012, Halper has had contracts with the Defense Department, working for a Pentagon think tank called the Office of Net Assessment. According to federal records, ONA has paid Halper more than $1 million for research and development in the social sciences and humanities.

The funds did not go solely to Halper, who hired other academics and experts to conduct research and prepare reports, according to U.S. government officials.

“He thinks well. He writes critically. And he knows a lot of people whose insights he can tap for us as well,” one U.S. government official said.

Halper, a Republican, has moved in intelligence and political circles for decades.

Halper’s first wife was the daughter of the prominent former CIA analyst Ray S. Cline, who worked alongside President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and mentored Halper, introducing him to associates in the intelligence and political worlds, according to numerous people familiar with their relationship.

After earning his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1971, Halper quickly ascended, serving on the White House domestic policy council for President Richard M. Nixon and then in the Office of Management and Budget before being tapped as an assistant to President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.

Halper later worked for Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) before joining the George H.W. Bush campaign in 1980 as national policy development director and then working for the Reagan-Bush campaign as national director of policy coordination. In the Reagan administration, he served as deputy assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs...

After the 1980 race, Halper was caught up in a scandal concerning alleged political spying. Aides to Reagan, including Halper, were accused of having spied on Carter’s campaign and obtaining private documents that Carter was using to prepare for a debate. Some Reagan White House officials later alleged that Halper had used former CIA agents to run an operation against Carter. Halper called the reports at the time “absolutely false” and has long denied the accusations.

Between 2000 and 2001, Halper contributed more than $85,000 to George W. Bush’s first presidential bid and the Republican National Committee, according to campaign finance records. Most friends describe him as a moderate Republican who is hawkish on China and deeply committed to U.S. institutions, having worked for years inside and around the federal government.