This weekend, Spygate insider Steven Schrage broke his silence.
A professor who served as an FBI informant during the investigation of the Trump campaign told one of his students in early 2017 that incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn was not “going to be around long,” according to audio that the student published Sunday. Steven Schrage, a former Bush administration official, released audio of a conversation he had on Jan. 10, 2017, with Stefan Halper, the FBI informant.
In the audio file, which Schrage included in an essay published by journalist Matt Taibbi, Halper is heard saying that he doubted that Flynn would last long in the Trump administration.
“If you go to the [National Security Council], you have to consider very carefully if you feel it’s appropriate for you to work for Flynn. I don’t think Flynn’s going to be around long. That’s just my guess,” Halper told Schrage, according to the audio recording.
In July 2016, Schrage was finishing his Ph.D. at Cambridge University under Halper’s supervision when he invited Page to speak at a conference entitled “2016’s Race to Change the World: How the U.S. Presidential Campaign Can Reshape Global Politics and Foreign Policy.” Schrage studied under Halper at the time while working on his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge, where Halper served as a professor in the school’s political department, according to The Daily Caller.
WATCH:
Schrage said he found Halper’s remark about Flynn curious because of the timing and because Halper would not have had any independent knowledge about Flynn’s tenure in the Trump administration.
“Halper would not have independently known Flynn, Trump’s most trusted security advisor, was about to go down,” wrote Schrage, who disclosed that he has met with U.S. Attorney John Durham. The Connecticut prosecutor is investigating several areas related to the Trump-Russia probe.
At the time of Halper’s remarks, the FBI was investigating Flynn as a possible agent of Russia and regarding a phone conversation he had in late December 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Mid-Dec 2016: Halper quoted in a front page article that Cambridge seminar @GenFlynn attended penetrated by Russian intel, causing HUGE storm
Few weeks later, Schrage goes to Virginia to tape Halper's thoughts on @GenFlynn
Now Schrage claims he didn't know what Halper was up to pic.twitter.com/teeRULwfBC— Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) August 10, 2020
Two days after the Halper-Schrage conversation, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius first revealed that Flynn spoke by phone with Kislyak. Flynn resigned as national security adviser a month later following fallout from revelations about the call with the Russian diplomat.
Halper’s role in the Trump investigation has long been a source of intrigue because of his connections to at least four separate Trump associates.
