A Cambridge professor was paid over $1 million by the FBI between 1991 and 2017 for his assistance to the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC), according to recently published de-classified documents.

The documents reveal that the FBI used a Confidential Human Source (CHS) by the name of Halper to investigate potential ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

A 2016 payment request of $5,000 revealed that Halper had been “integral in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” while a $25,000 payment request from the same year was labelled as being “for services performed on the Crossfire Hurricane / Typhoon investigations”.

“Crossfire Hurricane” was a counterintelligence investigation into potential links between Russian intelligence and members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, with Crossfire Typhoon being a sub-operation that formed part of the wider Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

The report stated that the CHS had provided the FBI “with unique access to targets who are very difficult to gain access to” and had been “more than willing” to do “whatever [he] could do in order to assist the FBI in its mission”.

Halper was deemed to be “valuable on a variety of cases,” and it was recommended that he “continue to operate as needed”.

Halper is described in the documents as a “lifetime fellow at a prestigious overseas university” who “has also been involved in several U.S. presidential campaigns and is a published author of several position papers and books”. He is also identified as residing in Cambridge for several months of the year. No other individuals with the surname of Halper are staff members or students at the University of Cambridge.

This description appears to match Stefan Halper, a life fellow at Magdalene College, who was revealed in 2018 to have assisted investigations into potential Russian links to the Trump campaign. He was tasked with meeting with Trump campaign officials as part of the operation. Halper was also an adviser to the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations.

The newly published documents show that Halper, codenamed MITCH, received $1,181,064.44 from the FBI between 1991 and 2017.

Documents pertaining to the nature of Halper’s activities and the amounts he was paid for them describe him as being “in an advantageous position to assist the USIC,” and as “assisting on a high priority/sensitive investigation”.

One field office annual source report described the CHS’ motivations for providing information to the FBI as “monetary compensation” and “patriotism/ideology”. His “behaviour” was described as “excellent”, and the report stated: “CHS has devoted significant time and energy to assisting the FBI in it’s [sic] goals.”

Stefan Halper has repeatedly been criticised by Russian-British Cambridge graduate Svetlana Lokhova, who has said that he provided false information about her interactions with a member of U.S. intelligence at a dinner which took place in Cambridge in 2014.

According to one report, the CHS claimed that Lokhova had “latched” onto then-U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn at the dinner and travelled with him in a taxi and a train after the dinner. The report declared: “The CHS stated that [he] is somewhat suspicious of Lokhova, as she has been affiliated with several prominent members of his university.”

Lokhova has rejected the version of events in the documents.

Court documents also show that FBI Special Agent William Barnett considered the idea that “Flynn could leave an event, either by himself, or REDACTED” to be “not plausible”. This was in reference to a source’s report that Flynn unexpectedly departed from an unidentified event in 2014. “With nothing to corroborate the story,” Barnett deemed the information provided by the source about the 2014 event to be “not accurate”.

Trump has coined the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation “Spygate” and has previously claimed that it could be “one of the biggest political scandals in history”. It is believed among Trump and a number of his supporters that “Spygate” was a conspiracy, supported by members of the Obama administration, to surveil and undermine his 2016 presidential campaign.

Conservative news websites Just the News and The Federalist each published the dossier shortly after Trump ordered that documents relating to operation “Crossfire Hurricane” be declassified on 25 March.

No U.S. government officials have denied the legitimacy of the documents published by Just the News and The Federalist.

According to the FBI website, U.S. courts “have recognised that the government’s use of informants is lawful and often essential to the effectiveness of properly authorized law enforcement investigations”. The bureau’s policy states that “special care is taken to carefully evaluate and closely supervise their use so the rights of individuals under investigation are not infringed”.

A spokesperson for the FBI told Varsity: “The FBI has been providing documents to Congress.”

All relevant parties were contacted for comment.