NBC News has a history of killing stories that don’t fit their narrative. The details of the Trump-Russia investigation are no exception.

Enter Stefen Halper, whose name has cropped up numerous times as one of the “informants” (i.e. spies) run against the Trump campaign in 2016. He made contact on behalf of the FBI/CIA with George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Sam Clovis. We’ve all been assured that such actions against American citizens were all on the up and up.

There’s another problem though. Halper is a conman and a liar who had no business being used by U.S. intelligence agencies as a source for anything.

The FBI informant who made contact with members of the Trump campaign has made allegations of Russian spy infiltration at the University of Cambridge that people involved in the matters have called “false” and “absurd.” A Russian academic who worked at Cambridge with the informant, Stefan Halper, said he made “false allegations” about her interactions with former national security adviser Michael Flynn at an event the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIS) hosted in February 2014. Halper’s claim in December 2016 that Russians infiltrated CIS has also been called “absurd” by Christopher Andrew, the official historian for MI5 and head of CIS, the Financial Times reported.

While the above excerpt is from a May 2018 article, no evidence to further support Halper’s crazed accusations has come forth. The fact that the FBI/CIA were using such a person to target a presidential candidate is kind of a big deal. You’d think exposing Halper for who he is would have been the kind of story any self-respecting journalist would love to break. You’d be wrong though, as numerous publications and networks did everything in their power to protect Halper and continue to do so today.

The story of NBC’s involvement in that is laid out by Svetlana Lokhova.

She was born in Russia so she’s instantly really scary and must be working for Putin, but in reality, she’s just a longtime historian at Cambridge University and a British citizen. She’s also the woman Halper falsely accused of having an affair with Michael Flynn.

According to NYT, Halper, who was not identified by name in the report, “was alarmed by the general’s apparent closeness with a Russian woman who was also in attendance.” Halper’s complaints prompted a person close to him “to pass on a warning to the American authorities that Mr. Flynn could be compromised by Russian intelligence.” But Lokhova said Halper’s assessment of her interaction with Flynn was inaccurate. She also suggested on Twitter that Halper was a source for journalists who investigated stories about her interactions with Flynn. Her Twitter post linked to a March 18, 2017 article published by The Wall Street Journal, which made the first allegations about Flynn’s encounter with Lokhova.

That assertion was based on a single public dinner with Flynn, which even the Washington Post investigated and found there was nothing there. No affair occurred and it was the only interaction between Flynn and Svetlana to ever happen.

TheDCNF has also confirmed that Washington Post columnist David Ignatius looked into the allegations but did not run a story. On Wednesday, Ignatius published a column defending Halper as a “middleman” in a justified investigation of the Trump campaign.

There was no Russian conspiracy and Flynn talking for a few minutes with a Cambridge historian was not actually him being brought under Russian control. Halper, needing to smear Flynn though, spread the rumor in late 2016/early 2017 and the media were keen to lap it up. Notice that Ignatius immediately sought to protect Halper despite knowing he lied. That’s not a coincidence, as we’ll see.

By the way, want more proof Halper was lying? Even the Mueller report found Halper so unreliable that he and his accusations weren’t mentioned once in the report.

Ms. Lokhova has shared her interactions with the media publicly a few times. On Monday she released a Twitter thread, including emails, showing how NBC killed a story that would have negatively portrayed Halper as the shyster that he is.

I rung NBC up. Here is a follow up on our call: 'It will be all the more powerful if NBC does it, one, because it’s the most watched network, and two, if NBC is doing it given the network’s agressive reporting on this administration, people will take it all the more seriously.(2) pic.twitter.com/namXp31HeV — Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) April 23, 2019

NBC producer: I’m passionate about righting this wrong and telling your story, which exposes Halper’s true character, and calls out the FBI for relying on a slanderer who cares much more about telling a juicy yarn than the truth. This is a breach of justice full stop.' (4) — Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) April 23, 2019

'I and my team in the investigative unit will take this story and it’s important implications very seriously and I believe our agencies (FBI and CIA) will be better for the fact that we shine a bright light on an unreliable and loose-lipped informant prone to inventing stories (6 — Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) April 23, 2019

If you read the emails, you’ll see an NBC producer who’s got other sources saying the same things Lokhova had been saying about Halper. She’s seemingly eager to tell the story in a piece (or TV hit) that will expose Halper for his previous lies and paint the FBI/CIA in a negative light for employing the guy.

Then something changed.

Then I noticed that I acquired some strange followers on twitter. I asked the NBC producer, 'Who is Ken Dilanian?' she went quiet and then responded 'why are you asking?'. (10) pic.twitter.com/W46i5pWHTP — Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) April 23, 2019

The man on the left has been aptly mocked as “Fusion Ken” because he’s essentially a paid mouthpiece for Fusion GPS. NBC happily employs him to spread his propaganda though. Matthew Alexander is the producer of Rachel Maddow’s Alex Jones-esque show on MSNBC, which has never met a Russian conspiracy theory they didn’t love. The fact that both started following Lokhova immediately after her interaction with the NBC producer tipped her off that they were all talking.

NBC producer called me from her mobile. She sounded distressed and said she was being pressurised by her colleagues. She believed me but said a colleague with 25 years intelligence experience was laughing saying "Everyone at the CIA knows Flynn had an affair with Lokhova" (12) — Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) April 23, 2019

And with that, the story was dead. NBC never ran with the angle showing that Halper had been caught in multiple lies. Instead, they continued to rely on Halper as a source for more stories, just as the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal did.

Halper’s interactions with the FBI/CIA are currently being investigated by the Inspector General and AG William Barr. There’s no doubt a lot more information yet to come out on this topic. What’s clear though is that the media were in cahoots with Halper (among others) to push a narrative of nefarious Russian collusion with Trump and his associates. They were willing to spike stories that hurt that narrative and rushed to push stories that supported it. That’s not reporting, it’s activism. Given the national security issues at stake here, it’s also dangerous.

It goes without saying but I’ll keep saying it. The media have no credibility anymore. Their behavior during the entire Russia-Collusion hoax was despicable and it deserves to be outed. We can only hope that the DOJ’s investigation of all this catches up to some of them.

————————————————-

Enjoying the read? Please visit my archive and check out some of my latest articles. I’ve got a new twitter! Please help by following @bonchieredstate.