Michael Flynn reached out to now-deceased Republican activist Peter Smith to help search for thousands of Hillary Clinton’s missing emails, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’report released Thursday.
After then-candidate Donald Trump said on July 27, 2016 that he hoped the Russians would “find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mueller says Trump “asked individuals affiliated with his campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails … repeatedly.” Flynn, who would eventually become Trump’s first national security adviser, “subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.” One of those people was Smith, who initiated his own unsuccessful effort to find the Clinton emails.
Smith committed suicide on May 14, 2017 at the age of 81. For decades he had been a prolific fundraiser for the GOP and had played a role in the alleged Troopergate scandal involving then-President Bill Clinton back in the 1990s. Although it was known that he made an effort to look for Clinton’s emails in 2016, the specifics of his story were a partly unresolved mystery in the Trump-Russia saga until Mueller’s redacted report was released by the Justice Department on Thursday.
During his search for the emails that Clinton didn’t hand over from her illicit private email server, Mueller says Smith “created a company, raised tens of thousands of dollars, and recruited security experts and business associates.”
As part of this effort, Smith “made claims to others involved in the effort (and those from whom he sought funding) that he was in contact with hackers with ‘ties and affiliations to Russia’ who had access to the emails.” In actuality, however, “associates and security experts who worked with Smith on the initiative did not believe that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers and were aware of no such connection.” Moreover, Mueller’s own investigation “did not establish that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers.”
Also as part of his effort, Smith tried to play up his connections to the Trump campaign, claiming that he was “in coordination” with Trump’s team, specifically naming Mike Flynn, Sam Clovis, Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway. Although Flynn and Clovis did communicate Smith about his efforts, Mueller “did not identify evidence that any of the listed individuals initiated or directed Smith’s efforts.”
Flynn had also reached out to Barbara Ledeen, a staffer for Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Judiciary Committee, about searching for the Clinton emails, but she “began her efforts to obtain the Clinton emails before Flynn’s request, as early as December 2015,” according to Mueller’s report. Ledeen had previously reached out to Smith about this prior to Flynn, way back on Dec. 3, 2015, telling him that the “Clinton email server was, in all likelihood, breached long ago” and that she believed Chinese, Iranian, and Russian intelligence agencies could “re-assemble the server’s email content.” On Dec. 16, 2015, Smith declined to participate in her effort, but he opted to launch his own in the summer of 2016.
Smith and Ledeen touched based with each other on their respective investigations in September 2016.
Ledeen claimed she had uncovered Clinton emails from the “dark web,” but after Erik Prince hired a tech adviser to determine whether the emails were legitimate, it was “determined that the emails were not authentic.”
As for Smith, his computer contained files downloaded from WikiLeaks related to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails. The files had a creation date of Oct. 2, 2016 — which was before they were released by WikiLeaks — but “forensic examination … established that the creation date did not reflect when the files were downloaded to Smith’s computer.” Mueller said that “the investigation did not otherwise identify evidence that Smith obtained the files before their release by WikiLeaks.”
There is no indication that Ledeen’s or Smith’s efforts was successful, with Mueller stating “the investigation did not establish that Smith, Ledeen, or other individuals in touch with the Trump campaign ultimately obtained the deleted Clinton emails.”
Flynn himself pleaded guilty in federal court in December 2017 for lying to the FBI in January 2017 for “willfully and knowingly” making making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” about his contacts with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in January 2017.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has suggested that a pardon for Flynn by Trump might be considered.
