On Thursday evening, the Wall Street Journal revealed another aspect to the collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.
That Republican researcher, Peter Smith, claimed to be working with Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Smith’s actions, which took place in advance of the campaign, seem to consist of searching for contacts in the hacking community that might be able to provide Hillary Clinton’s private emails. It’s a clear example of the kind of active cooperation between hackers and Republican operatives that law-enforcement has been searching for.
Those investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence.
It’s not clear if Smith was that intermediary, or if Flynn had other connections funneling information from Russia. But the information about Smith fills in another gap, something that around the central figures of Trump, Kushner, Flynn, Sessions, and Manafort were a whole host of operatives. It also shows that the investigation into Trump–Russia requires more than just scanning Trump’s phone calls for Moscow area codes.
But Smith is just one Republican operative who colluded with Russia. We already know there were others.
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2t87l4Y
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