The Cambridge University academic portrayed in the mainstream media as retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s Russian mistress and spy recruiter told the Star Newspapers about her ordeal—caught in the web of fake news and the Russian Collusion Hoax.
“In April 2016, the Obama administration renewed General Flynn’s security clearance—it was a top secret/sci, sensitive compartmentalized information, it is the highest clearance there is—so all is fine but, then suddenly in August 2016, the FBI start secretly investigating him for being a Russian spy—that is why they needed me to be his recruiter,’ said Svetlana Lokhova, a former By-Fellow of Cambridge’s Churchill College.
Margot Cleveland wrote for The Federalist: “This honey pot storyline originated with Lokhova’s mentor at Cambridge, the official MI5 historian, Professor Christopher Andrew, when on February 19, 2017, Andrew penned an article for the London Sunday Times, “Impulsive General Misha Shoots Himself in the Foot.”
The Times article is no longer available, but Cleveland continued: “That article portrayed the unnamed Lokhova’s brief meeting with Flynn during a dinner event two years prior at Cambridge as the beginning of a compromising relationship between Flynn and a Russian spy.”
Luke Harding, one of the earliest and most prolific advocates of the Russian Collusion Hoax, wrote about the meeting in March 31, 2017 edition of The Guardian:
Flynn’s erratic conduct had troubled US intelligence officials for some time, multiple sources have told the Guardian.
One concern involved an encounter with a Russian-British graduate student, Svetlana Lokhova, whom Flynn met on a trip to Cambridge in February 2014.
At the time, Flynn was one of the top US spies and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which provides information to the Pentagon about the military strengths and intentions of other states and terrorist groups.
In his book, Collusion: Secret meetings, dirty money, and how Russia helped Donald Trump win, Harding quotes from email traffic between Lokhova and Flynn that he obtained access to and mischievously wrote: “In his emails, Flynn signed off in an unusual way for a U.S. spy. He called himself ‘General Misha.’ Misha is the Russian equivalent of Michael.”
Lokhova said she was shocked when reporters started calling her about her relationship with Flynn, but she now sees the connection between this false narrative with the events of August 2016.
“I have no idea what the trigger was, but it is clear that in August there was a significant pickup in activity,” she said. In August, the Trump campaign did not collapse like conventional wisdom predicted after the Republican National Convention in July.
“On Aug. 10, the FBI opened up counter intelligence investigations on Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort, but not General Flynn,” said the authoress of the book “The Spy Who Changed History” about master Russian spy Stanislav Shumovsky, who traveled the U.S. in the 1930s stealing military and industrial secrets.
“Something happened. We know from the Horowitz report that Stefan Halper then met with the FBI on the 11th and 12th, Thursday and Friday,” she said. “Monday is the 15th and that is the day Strzok sends the text to Page about the insurance policy discussed in McCabe’s office—and on the 16th, they open the shocking counter intelligence investigation into General Flynn. It is an unprecedented step to do such a thing on a former head of a U.S. intelligence agency.”
Flynn stepped down as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2014 after clashing with President Barack Obama and his team. At the same time, he retired from the Army ending a 33-year career, mostly in military intelligence.
Strzok texts Page about ‘insurance policy’ day before FBI opens Flynn inquest
The full Strzok text read: “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.” Andrew G. McCabe was the deputy director of the FBI. Lisa Page was an attorney working for McCabe and Peter Strzok was an FBI agent working closely with Page.
Halper is a long-time U.S. political and intelligence operative and the former son-in-law of Ray S. Cline, who rose to become deputy director of the CIA. In 2015 and 2016, the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment awarded Halper contracts for research projects, and in the context of those projects he interacted with both Page and Papadopoulos. In the same timeframe, Halper was on and FBI contract to infiltrate the Trump campaign. Halper is, himself, a life fellow at Cambridge’s Magdalene College.
Lokhova said she places the blame for her unwitting involvement in the scandal at the feet of Halper, so much so that soon she will file a motion with the Fourth Circuit to continue her lawsuit against the Cambridge don and NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.
She would not discuss the lawsuit in any way, but she did say that Halper was the one who told the FBI and reporters that at a February 2014 dinner at Cambridge University, Flynn, still leading DIA, met Lokhova, that Halper further falsely claimed the general and the academic became lovers.
“He told them he was an eyewitness and saw General Flynn and I leave together in a taxi,” she said. “It is just not true. Halper was not at the event. My husband came and picked me up and he left with his security detail. It is so crazy. The reporters ignored that General Flynn met his wife with he was 14 and that I am a mother.”
Flynn speaks at RT dinner in Moscow
The narrative continued that Flynn had no idea that Lokhova was a Russian agent and to further entrap Flynn, she gave him money and invited him to the infamous Dec. 10, 2015 Moscow dinner to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RT, a Russian state-owned broadcaster. At the dinner, General Flynn sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Then, at RT dinner, the Russians confront General Flynn with kompromat,” Lokhova said. “They always use the word ‘kompromat’ to make is sound authentic, but no Russian ever uses this word.”
The bogus story goes that the Russians presented Flynn with the evidence of the payments and the relationship with Lokhova, they were able to flip him to work for them, she said.
Lokhova also said that part of the absurdity of the so-called confrontation at the RT dinner, where Flynn was supposed to be turned into her intelligence asset was that General Flynn was paid to give a attend and give remarks through his Washington speakers bureau that handled all of his engagements.
Flynn’s bureau was Leading Authorities Inc, or LAI, the same bureau that represents McCabe, the former FBI deputy director.
“The speakers bureau was the one pushing it and asking the Russians for more money than they wanted to pay,” she said. “If the Russians really wanted Flynn in Moscow for a nefarious reason , surely they would have paid him anything, instead of arguing over the fee?” Also, contrary to media reports, Flynn’s legal team put out a statement detailing who the general briefed DIA before and after the RT dinner.
The British citizen said she was nothing to do with the RT dinner, but she said the photo of Flynn and Putin sitting together is another deception.
“There was a woman sitting between Flynn and Putin and when she got up, someone took a picture,” she said. In the photo run by the Associated Press, the back of the empty chair between the two men is visible. “Flynn speaks no Russian. Putin speaks no English. The idea that they had any conversation is impossible.”
Now, that the truth about the attacks on Flynn and Trump and his campaign staffers is coming to the fore, the academic said she is still fighting to clear her name and rebuild her shattered life.
“The people going after Flynn always talk about the same three incidents: payments from the Russian government in 2015, the RT dinner and his affair with me,” she said.
All three pieces of the Flynn-Russia narrative are deceptions, but the FBI needed the affair as the predicate to go after a man, who had just been cleared with the government’s highest clearance less than five months prior, she said.
Lokhova’s new book about her ordeal
Lokhova has written a book “SpyGate Exposed” about her experiences at the heart of the Russian Collusion Hoax and how the FBI, CIA and the media all conspired to destroy Flynn and rig the 2016 campaign and attempt to topple the administration of President Donald Trump.
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Neil W. McCabe is a Washington-based national political reporter for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. In addition to the Star Newspapers, he is a Media Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategies. Prior to joining the Star Newspapers, McCabe covered the White House, Capitol Hill and national politics for One America News, Breitbart, Human Events and Townhall. Before coming to Washington, he was a staff reporter for Boston’s Catholic paper, The Pilot, and the editor of two Boston-area community papers, The Somerville News and The Alewife. McCabe is a public affairs NCO in the Army Reserve and he deployed for 15 months to Iraq as a combat historian. Follow him: @neilwmccabe2
