"If Halper was a spy, why was the Trump administration trying to give him a job in the administration?" Don't intelligence agency try to get spies into the organizations they are spying upon? Don't they try to turn people with connections to the other organizations? The question seems impossibly ignorant of how intelligence is sometimes gathered? Lets not forget Trump was not in politics and had to hire a whole lot of staff from scratch. And some of his initial hires seemed to be playing for other team.
But it was NOT the FBI that recommended him to join the Trump admin, it was not the FBI that sent him to initiate contact - he was an informant who exposed the rats. It's like your Uranium One 'witness' - was he a spy too? And what's wrong with intelligence gathering when you are literally swarming with foreign agents?
White collar crime expert Jennifer Taub explained to CNN on Wednesday that President Donald Trump's so-called "Spygate" conspiracy theory is a like a typical scam conducted a "con artist." "The president of the United States has just elevated a conspiracy theory to a government plot with zero evidence," CNN host Brooke Baldwin announced, pointing to Trump's baseless allegation that an FBI "spy" infiltrated his 2016 campaign. "We have this conspiracy theory president who has launched this mega, mega P.R. blitz based on total rumor," Baldwin said. Taub observed that "desperation" was making Trump float conspiracy theories as facts. "Reality is not on his side," she pointed out. "And he's a longtime con artist... Con artists need two types of people to keep the con going. They need the enablers who know what's going on but are benefiting in some way by the con. And then they also need people they target, their marks." "It's really disappointing for those members of Congress who are sort of whispering among themselves -- and I'm speaking about the Republicans," Taub continued, "that they don't trust this guy, that this is outrageous, that he's undermining the rule of law, that he's trying to target [special counsel] Bob Mueller and so on. But they don't speak out about it publicly or if they do, it's those who are not running for office again." Baldwin pointed out that some polls indicate that Trump's "con" is working because a portion of people have "soured on Bob Mueller." "The fact that most Republicans believe him is indicative of where our politics are," CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin remarked. "This is not normal," Baldwin agreed. "What Trump and his allies have succeeded in doing is making [Robert Mueller] into another political player," Toobin added. "I don't think it's an accurate perception of what's Mueller is doing. But in the absence of his voice or in the absence of other people who are authoritative responding, this is where we are." "It just makes you think," Baldwin replied, "that down the road, when Mueller finds whatever he finds, based on all this [pounding] from the president, then what?"
your ridiculous question was "If Halper was a spy, why was the Trump administration trying to give him a job in the administration?" That was a nonsense question. on your new point... Whether a person is a spy or not would seem to depend on his or her motives and allegiances at the time of the gathering of the info. Do you know if Halper had spoken with the FBI prior to or while working with Trump? If he did not talk to the FBI until after and he was not planning on selling Trump out at the time I would say he was not a spy. But if he was in contact with the FBI at the time he was working with Trump I would say that is strong evidence he was spying.
But that's my question, here is a 30 year veteran of Republican politics that was trusted enough to be recommended to work WITHIN the administration - how can such a person be a 'spy' and spy about what exactly? The ridiculous notion is that there was something worth spying on within the campaign FOR THE FBI - one could understand if his allegiance was to the Clinton campaign but what did the campaign have that Halper could give and FBI would want. Nothing.
So if you answer is that he was in contact with the FBI he was almost certainly spying... its not our job to answer why, its the FBI's job to explain why they were spying on Trump when it appears they had nothing on Trump but paid and oppo research garnered from hillary's collusion with a british spy and russians. the crimes I recall at the moment were about lying to the FBI or evading taxes not doing illegal stuff while working for Trump. I am sure you will let me know if there were other crimes by the Trump.
let me put it this way. you are watching a t.v. show and they put a wire on the person... is that person spying? Does it matter if that person was working there prior to wearing the mic? Collecting info for the other side... is spying... If Halper was collecting info for the FBI that is spying...there should be no question about that. That all these morons in the media are trying to act like that is not spying could only be for the purpose of fooling idiots. Let me be clear... I am not asserting he was collecting info for the fbi or some other govt agency. But if he were collecting it for them while working for trump that is spying regardless of whether he was a 30 year republican or not.
Keeping the analogy as close to the facts - if a person who witnesses a crime goes to the FBI and the FBI asks the informant to inform them of new facts - is it spying or informing? The Uranium One witness who informed the House committee on so called pay to play deal - was he a spy or a witness? The question again is - collecting what info? Spying is open ended, you collect as much info as possible - what was Halper 'collecting' for it to be called spying. Did the FBI asks about Trump's debate prep tactics? His strategy about swing state targeting? If not - what were they after and if they were after counter intelligence information and unless the campaign was full of foreign agents, is it not their duty to be informed? NYTimes broke the story, the 'media' in question - so first of all, NYT is not fake news? And secondly, NYT explained the difference between spies and informants. You can't have 75+ contact with Russians and then expect you wouldn't be surveiled because of it. And by the way, he wasn't working for Trump as in being paid by them. The contacts happened in September after FBI had already started an investigation triggered by the Australian diplomat's report in July.
1. Didn't ET have the story before the new york times. I don't feel like doing the research. I tried but there were far too many threads and stories. 2. Let me explain the difference. We don't need the new york times to spin it... if the person goes to the FBI and tells they something he or she may simply be an informant. If the person goes back an gathers more... that is a spy and an informant. 3. If the person then tries to set up a campaign member by offer Papadoupolus 3 grand to write a 1500 hundred word article and then asks him questions about hillarys emails and the russians... that is spy... why are you even wasting time with that informant crap. the guy was trying to buy off papadoupoulis for the feds. that is not a fricken informant. I know what a Confidential informant is. A C.I. its frequently someone who has been turned and agrees to spy on someone else in exchange for a lighter sentence or someone who is spying and gives over info money. many times law enforcement informants are spies. But in this case we had the Halper running an operation against Papadouplis and your side has the gall to say he was not spying. Fake news sobs...