Collusion is back: The strange tale of Michael Flynn, his son and a now deceased Republican operativ

FRIDAY, JUN 30, 2017 04:59 AM EDT

Collusion is back: The strange tale of Michael Flynn, his son and a now-deceased Republican operative

Report: Trump’s former national security adviser implicated in attempted hack of Hillary Clinton’s emails

SOPHIA TESFAYE

Ever since a Justice Department special counsel was named to oversee an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election after President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of former FBI director James Comey, one question has hung over the whole affair. Why did Trump back himself into such a precarious situation in order to protect Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser?

For those who have long speculated that Flynn could hold the key to possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russians, a new report from the Wall Street Journal adds yet another bit of evidence pointing in that direction.

In an interview with the Journal last month, a now-deceased GOP operative admitted that during the campaign he asked cybersecurity experts to look for the 33,000 emails supposedly missing from Hillary Clinton’s private server. Peter W. Smith, a moderately well-known Republican researcher who helped peddle allegations from four Arkansas state troopers that they had helped Bill Clinton cheat on Hillary with “dozens of women” in the 1990s, made a series of stunning claims to his close associates and the Journal. Smith said that he sought to obtain Clinton’s emails from hacker forums, that he had contact with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign, and implied that he had worked with Flynn — who also sought to uncover the emails.

Ten days after being interviewed by the Journal, Smith passed away at the age of 81.

According to the Journal, Smith’s shenanigans began last summer, about a month after Trump jokingly called on Russia to release Clinton’s private emails. Beginning over the Labor Day weekend of 2016, Smith mounted a private campaign to obtain stolen emails that he believed had been on Clinton’s private server. Smith assembled a team of technology experts, lawyers and a Russian-speaking investigator and made contact with a number of groups — including, he claimed, some in Russia. Smith also implied in conversations with associates that he was working with Flynn, citing a working relationship with Flynn’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, when trying to recruit new team members.

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http://www.salon.com/2017/06/30/michael-flynn-his-son-and-a-now-deceased-gop-operative-just-revived-the-russian-collusion-question/