Friday at 5. https://t.co/PmklvD4gQo
— Zed, Zedd 'n' Zeddy (@ZeddRebel) August 25, 2017
All that punditocracy tut-tutting, this week, about how Hillary should just move on and stop talking about the stolen election?…
Special counsel Robert Mueller is examining what role, if any, former national security adviser Mike Flynn may have played in a private effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers, according to people familiar with the matter.
The effort to seek out hackers who were believed to have stolen Mrs. Clinton’s emails, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, was led by a longtime Republican activist, Peter W. Smith. In correspondence and conversations with his colleagues, Mr. Smith portrayed Mr. Flynn as an ally in those efforts and implied that other senior Trump campaign officials were coordinating with him, which they have denied. He also named Mr. Flynn’s consulting firm and his son in the correspondence and conversations…
A lawyer for Mr. Flynn and a lawyer for his son declined to comment. Mr. Flynn’s firm has been dissolved.
The investigators’ inquiries show Mr. Mueller considers Mr. Smith’s effort to be potentially significant in the context of the wider probe into whether there was any collusion between people associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Mr. Mueller’s mandate from the Justice Department allows him to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the [Trump] campaign.” Investigators had already been focused on Mr. Flynn, using a grand jury to assist in a criminal investigation of the former White House adviser focused on his work in the private sector on behalf of foreign interests.
Mr. Mueller’s team is also inquiring about the nature of Mr. Smith’s relationship with several Trump campaign advisers and aides to the president, the people familiar with the matter said…
The investigators have also been trying to determine whether Mr. Smith or anyone working with him paid hackers for Mrs. Clinton’s emails, the people with knowledge of the investigation said. Mr. Smith set up a limited-liability company in Delaware, called KLS Research LLC, that he intended to use to pay people assisting him with his work and to collect contributions, people with direct knowledge of Mr. Smith’s efforts said.
Mr. Smith told the Journal that he never intended to pay for any of the emails found by hackers. Ultimately, he said, he couldn’t verify that all the emails the hacker groups claimed to have found were genuine, and so he didn’t acquire them. Instead, Mr. Smith said he encouraged the hackers to give the emails to WikiLeaks…
Wow… It would be something if Hillary Clinton’s emails actually brought Trump’s presidency down https://t.co/kzoT1Jdb07
— Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) August 25, 2017
Russiagate Open Thread: Once Again, Timing Is EverythingPost + Comments (214)