Debategate 1980, rigging a debate for Reagan election, were Baker and Halper in on it? It was about as high stakes a presidential debate as there has been in American history. When President Jimmy Carter and Republican party nominee Ronald Reagan squared off on Oct. 28, 1980, in Cleveland for their one and only debate of that election, there was just one week to go before Americans cast their ballots.  There was no early voting, the nation was gripped by an ongoing hostage crisis in Tehran, and the two candidates were running close in the polls. This was perhaps Reagan’s last, best chance to dethrone the Democratic incumbent. The highlight footage from the debate tends to focus on Reagan’s winning quip, “There you go again,” but that disarming rejoinder to Carter’s pointed critique of the Republican challenger was just one rhetorical flourish in a remarkably sharp debate performance from the former California governor. All night long, Reagan responded with ease to Carter’s attacks, batting them away with well-prepared facts, figures and pithy one-liners. just a few days before the real debate, a set of papers titled “Presidential Debate Briefing Book,” containing 69 questions and answers, including a number of potential lines of attack on Reagan, went missing from the White House and found its way into the hands of key Reagan campaign officials. While it never emerged that Reagan himself was aware of the pilfered papers, they were used by campaign aides in his debate preparations The end product of the extensive debate prep, whatever the means, was a polished candidate, one who, as a former actor, certainly knew his lines. “He has his memorized tapes," Reagan’s performance in the debate would catapult him to a big victory a week later, when he would win 44 of 50 states — and with them the presidency. In a race that had been a virtual tie before the debate,  Many of the individuals involved in Reagan’s campaign and debate prep now occupied high-level positions in his administration, including Chief of Staff James Baker and CIA Director William J. Casey, and it looked like the brewing Debategate scandal — one of the first to bear the -gate suffix in the wake of Watergate — might take them down. Reagan denied any knowledge of the stolen briefing book, but Congress launched a 10-month investigation that cost half a million dollars and resulted in a 2,500-page report. It turned out that Reagan campaign officials had shown little interest in how the book was obtained, or the ethics of using it since it was not marked as classified, but they insisted that it had not played a major part in the candidate’s debate preparations. The investigation also failed to uncover the actual thief. And so the scandal died out, no administration officials were fired and Reagan sailed to reelection in 1984. https://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-stolen-campaign-documents-that-helped-reagan-win-the-presidency/89685 Key aides involved in the Reagan debate preparation were James Baker, David Gergen, and David Stockman. They had access to briefing papers from the Carter campaign. The importance of these documents is still in question.  House Speaker Tip O'Neill said that the debate ultimately did not affect the outcome of the election, arguing that an unpopular Carter would have lost even if he had been seen to "win" the debate. swore under oath that he had received the briefing book from William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, but Casey, then campaign manager, later CIA director, vehemently denied this. David Stockman, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, admitted using the Carter material while helping Reagan prepare for the debate Newsweek wondered whether a clandestine operation involving ex-CIA agents had been undertaken by the Reagan team to keep close tabs on the Carter campaign. This was confirmed by Time in its July 25, 1983, issue. According to that report, William Casey brought in former agents of both the CIA and the FBI to gather information from colleagues who were still with that agency. Jimmy Carter complained that the pilfered documents revealed the "essence" of his campaign, implying that his reelection bid had been done great harm when they fell into Republican hands. The matter was never resolved as both the FBI and a congressional subcommittee reporting in May 1984 failed to determine how or through whom the briefing book came to the Reagan campaign.The Justice Department, in closing its investigation, cited "the professed lack of memory or knowledge on the part of those in possession of the documents". Still, it said the contradictions between Reagan aides like Baker and Casey "could be explained by differences in recollection or interpretation. The New York Times reported the Reagan campaign headquarters conducted a data-gathering operation to collect inside information on Carter foreign policy and used a number of former CIA officials in the effort. It said Stefan Halper, a campaign aide who handled communications for Bush and provided news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, was in charge of the operation. Halper called the report "just absolutely untrue". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debategate Sound familiar?