The conspiracy to use the vast powers of the US intelligence community spy on the Trump campaign and hobble his presidency with fabricated allegations of collusion with Russia is unraveling at an accelerating pace. The latest evidence of the slow motion collapse of the cabal is that the name of Stefan Halper, which has been known to readers of American Thinker for quite some time now (and which was first revealed by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller almost two months ago), suddenly is being published and broadcast by members of the mainstream media. Fox News, The UK Daily Mail, Newsweek, The New York Post, and Mother Jones all are defying the warnings of intelligence agencies, politicians like Senator Mark Warner (see Clarice Feldman’s demolition of his CYA attempt today), and left wing professors that revealing his name could be a crime.

Consider this amazing tweet from a prominent law school professor, the occupant of an endowed chair at the University of Texas Law School:

Dear @DevinNunes:

Just a friendly note to remind you that leaking the identity of an FBI informant in the context of a foreign counterintelligence investigation is a felony in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982:https://t.co/Ohppx9jBLK pic.twitter.com/kludMTWVED

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) May 19, 2018

Update: even more hysteria from prominent progressives, Benjamin Wittes (a close frined of James Comey) and Paul Krugman:

I have a whole lot to say about how the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the President of the United States teamed up to out an intelligence source who aided our country in a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation against a hostile foreign power.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) May 19, 2018

We've basically crossed the line into treason now -- and a whole party is acquiescing https://t.co/zZdhidfFR3

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 19, 2018

(If I were a man of the Left, I'd be more careful about throwing around the T-word, Professor Krugman. Perrhaps you've heard that what goes around, comes around)

This attempt to intimidate people bears more than a passing resemblance to the manufactured kerfuffle over the revealing of Valerie Plame’s name, as if she had been an overseas operative, when in fact she was a desk jockey at the CIA, as Clarice Feldman explains today. It is also wrong, as Streiff of Red State explains:

This is just stupid. The law clearly defines who it covers as employees of an intelligence agency. This does not cover informants or sources and intelligence agencies are forbidden by law from collecting information on US persons. And the very idea that the Department of Justice is going to okay a grand jury investigation and indictment of a member of Congress when the FBI has leaked the same information to multiple media outlets is simply insane.

We know Halper’s name as the likely Deep State operative who lured Carter Page and George Papadopoulos into statements used to justify the ongoing surveillance of the Trump campaign through good old fashioned internet searches and inductive reasoning, used to apply the information already leaked about the operative in question to the limited field of individuals who meet the criteria already revealed. Nobody revealed anything remotely classified.

It is only a matter of time before Halper is subpoenaed to appear before a congressional committee. And possibly also a grand jury under the direction of the US Attorney in Utah, John Huber, who is investigating the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign and other potential abuses.

Tick, tick, tick….

Correction: John Huber is the US attorney in Utah