The Spy Has Come In From The Cold; Шпион пришел из холода Shpion prishel iz kholoda

We should have known that a Bush henchman would be involved in this spying.

Well, you see, the mole wasn't a spy, he was an informant. Aha. Let's use a microscope to tell the difference.

The mole: Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor.

Supposedly, Halper was gathering information for the FBI about a suspected Trump-Russia connection.

Well, what else has Halper done? At The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald reports: "Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election, in which the Reagan campaign - using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush - got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering."

Oops. That doesn't smell good. CIA operatives, managed by Halper, infiltrated the presidential campaign, spied on Jimmy Carter and his advisors, and relayed information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan's team.

But we're supposed to believe, without evidence, that in 2016 Halper was only trying to dig up information on a Trump-Russia connection.

What more do we know about Stefan Halper, the mole for hire? Breitbart: "Halper...served as an assistant to all three of President Gerald Ford's Chief of Staffs - Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney..." Quite a trio of politicians. I don't think you'd want to list them on your resume, if you were applying for a job with an organization that showed a shred of ethics.

And then there is this: In 1984, Halper was the chairman of the Palmer National Bank. Breitbart: "White House official Oliver North wiredloaned funds from the Palmer National Bank to a Swiss bank account, which were later used to aid the [Nicaraguan] contras." The contras, backed by the CIA, were trying to derail the Sandinista government, and in the process, reportedly carried out over 1000 terrorist attacks. Transferring funds from the US to the contras was illegal.

Glenn Greenwald: "...the CIA operative and FBI informant [Stefan Halper] used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election."

But don't worry. Nothing untoward is going on here. The FBI merely needed a man on the inside of the Trump campaign, to make sure Russia wasn't exercising undue influence on the 2016 presidential election. Nothing more. No problem. Just ask the FBI. They'll confirm this. The FBI high echelon is squeaky clean. They never lie.

One other thing. Stefan Halper's father-in-law was Ray Cline, an infamous CIA agent. From Wikispooks: "Cline has been an outspoken proponent of disinformation and direct manipulation of the press by the CIA. In testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Cline defended the use of such covert devices as black propaganda and the funding of journalists, arguing that 'the First Amendment is only an amendment'."

"He [Cline] later became director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1969-73), where he helped coordinate the CIA's destabilization and eventual overthrow of the Allende government in Chile."

But again, no problem. Why would we even suspect Halper was engaged in anything illegal during his time as a mole inside the Trump campaign?

The FBI is pure as the driven snow. So is the CIA. All is well.