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WSJ: GOP Activist Who Sought Clinton Emails Cited Trump Campaign Officials

G

Greigor The Fellhand

Member
kirblar said:
I suspect they have more but want the admin to be on record officially denying this stuff before dropping it.
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this is exactly what they are doing

wittes got people like
raw
 
S

Sobriquet

Member
btrboyev said:
So when do we expect it? It's already past 10pm est. if it's a big breaking story it's too late for big cable networks to latch onto, especially considering most of the top anchors are on holiday.
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Story in the OP dropped 40 minutes ago ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
S

Steel

Banned
Brakke said:
The OP should probably acknowledge that Smith is dead.



Hard to know what to make of this. The connection is tenuous and the dude you'd ask to clarify things is dead.
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They were planning to have a second meeting to clarify the connection, from the interview that they gave on CNN. Unfortunate that he died, but he was 81, so it's not surprising.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me that it was precisely because he was in poor health that he decided to just say fuck it and admit to a bunch of stuff.
 
S

skullmuffins

Banned
OK, now that I've read the article, the @pwnallthethings guy is a source (his name is matt tait per his twitter)

The names of the other campaign officials haven't surfaced in connection with Mr. Smith's work except in the document, which the Journal reviewed on Friday.

The document section that lists campaign officials is followed by the words, ”in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure."—a possible reference to campaign strictures imposed by campaign finance and disclosure laws.

The document was included in a package of opposition research Mr. Smith shared through an encrypted email with Matt Tait, a cybersecurity expert who once worked for British intelligence. Mr. Tait said he was approached last summer by Mr. Smith, who wanted him to help verify whether emails offered to the group by hackers came from Mrs. Clinton's private serve.

After discussing his project by phone and in emails Mr. Smith gave him a document called the ”KLS research packet," which contained articles Mr. Smith planned to use for opposition research, Mr. Tait said. The packet cover sheet is the document that listed the Trump campaign officials. Mr. Smith's name and phone number are typed at the bottom of it.

Mr. Smith asked Mr. Tait to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Mr. Tait said he declined and ceased communications with Mr. Smith, never reviewing any purported Clinton emails.
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N

nephilimdj

Member
In before we find out the "hacking forums" were t_d (lol)

Smith told the newspaper his team interacted with five groups of hackers who claimed to have the emails, two of which were Russian.
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Sounds like reddit
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
So its sounding like, at a minimum, Trump basically recreated the Watergate Scandal. Order the illegal obtainment of information on his political opponent, and get caught up in the coverup.
 
A

Autodidact

Banned
Drkirby said:
So its sounding like, at a minimum, Trump basically recreated the Watergate Scandal. Order the illegal obtainment of information on his political opponent, and get caught up in the coverup.
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Those who ignore history inevitably repeat it. What kind of student do you think Trump was?
 
C

chadskin

Member
nephilimdj said:
But the article claims 2 of the 5 hackers contacted claimed to be Russian, so WSJ is claiming "Russia"
its a mythical as 4chan hacker.
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There's a little more to that:
U.S. investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that tell of Russian hackers discussing how to get emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence. It isn’t clear who the intermediary might have been or whether Mr. Smith’s operation was the one allegedly under discussion by the Russian hackers.
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L

Lo-Volt

Member
TunaMarshmallow said:
I just read the WaPo piece. Can someone explain why it's not nothingburger?
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Sure!

Basically, we are now finding explicit links between Donald Trump and his campaign, and the Russian government, with the aim of throwing this election in his favor. No one story is the 'bombshell' that removes all doubt or inertia in Washington, but with every leak, we see the network benefiting Trump in full.

Smith was a GOP activist who went on a mission to find emails from Hillary Clinton's server and exploit them. In an earlier story this week, the WSJ reported that Smith was working with, or was invoking the name of, General Michael Flynn, the disgraced national security director, to recruit hackers and get the data. The WSJ also reported that this inquiry got caught 'on the other end': Russian officials were trying to find these messages and relay them to Flynn, through an intermediary. We can make an assumption who that is. By the way, Smith won't comment anymore because he's dead; he died 10 days after the Journal reached out to him. He was 81 years old, but I do wonder what the Journal was hoping the reader to interpret by mentioning that fact.

To go back to Mr. Flynn, remember some facts from the last few bombshell articles: he was caught trying to influence U.S. policy to favor a client while still working in government. He did not register he was a 'foreign agent'. He tried to squeal to Congress and they said no. Paul Manafort was caught on the payroll of the Russian-backed government of Ukraine before its overthrow, and was also fiddling with his taxes.

Since Smith has effectively named the senior officials in the campaign and administration in this absurd recruitment package, more and more suspects appear. This was not just Flynn or Trump, but the entire senior leadership. They conspired to find messages of their opponent (or they at least knew it was happening and benefited from it). They wanted to exploit it, and they wanted to win the election by pulling a fast one on the public, through ill-gotten goods.
 
C

cameron

Member
Mr. Flynn, his consulting firm Flynn Intel Group and his son Michael G. Flynn, who was chief of staff at Flynn Intel, were cited more extensively as Mr. Smith sought to recruit researchers, as well as in documents related to the effort that have been described to the Journal. Neither Mr. Flynn nor his son responded to requests for comment.

The names of the other campaign officials haven’t surfaced in connection with Mr. Smith’s work except in the document, which the Journal reviewed on Friday.

The document section that lists campaign officials is followed by the words, “in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure.”—a possible reference to campaign strictures imposed by campaign finance and disclosure laws.
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Kinda interesting that the document only includes Bannon, Conway and Clovis. If the doc was a generic copy/pasted list of "Trump Campaign" staff, it would have the full set of key advisors on it:
https://ballotpedia.org/Donald_Trump_presidential_campaign_key_staff_and_advisors,_2016
 
T

TunaMarshmallow

Member
Lo-Volt said:
Sure!

Basically, we are now finding explicit links between Donald Trump and his campaign, and the Russian government, with the aim of throwing this election in his favor. No one story is the 'bombshell' that removes all doubt or inertia in Washington, but with every leak, we see the network benefiting Trump in full.

Smith was a GOP activist who went on a mission to find emails from Hillary Clinton's server and exploit them. In an earlier story this week, the WSJ reported that Smith was working with, or was invoking the name of, General Michael Flynn, the disgraced national security director, to recruit hackers and get the data. The WSJ also reported that this inquiry got caught 'on the other end': Russian officials were trying to find these messages and relay them to Flynn, through an intermediary. We can make an assumption who that is. By the way, Smith won't comment anymore because he's dead; he died 10 days after the Journal reached out to him.

Since Smith has effectively named the senior officials in the campaign and administration, more and more suspects appear. This was not just Flynn or Trump, but the entire senior leadership. They conspired to find messages of their opponent, or they at least knew it was happening and benefited from it. They wanted to exploit it, and they wanted to win the election by pulling a fast one on the public, through ill-gotten goods.
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Yes. I'm with you on all of that. But right now there's nothing suggesting that any current aides were aware of or involved with this, right? (The WaPo piece is careful to say: "There is no indication in the document that he sought or received any coordination from the campaign officials or the campaign in general.")

I realize it's a slow-drip thing. But it feels like the biggest piece is still missing.
 
L

Lo-Volt

Member
TunaMarshmallow said:
Yes. I'm with you on all of that. But right now there's nothing suggesting that any current aides were aware of or involved with this, right? (The WaPo piece is careful to say: "There is no indication in the document that he sought or received any coordination from the campaign officials or the campaign in general.")

I realize it's a slow-drip thing. But it feels like the biggest piece is still missing.
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I suppose not. But somehow, I get the feeling we'll hear more about that. That their names were even used makes them suspect. It also means that the administration is running out of alibis.
 
H

hendersonhank

Member
I'm not sure I'm entirely understanding the significance of this.

Repub guy talks to Russians to see if they have some damaging Hillary info they can share.

How exactly is that different from Dem guys hiring Steele's firm to get damaging info on Trump from Russians?

Even if Trump campaign peeps knew of and/or approved of this, is that illegal? Isn't digging for dirt on the opponent, or seeking to obtain dirt that others have dug up, an unfortunate part of politics? If say Podesta had been aware of what Steele was doing or authorized it, would that be a bombshell?
 
B

Brakke

Banned
TunaMarshmallow said:
Yes. I'm with you on all of that. But right now there's nothing suggesting that any current aides were aware of or involved with this, right? (The WaPo piece is careful to say: "There is no indication in the document that he sought or received any coordination from the campaign officials or the campaign in general.")

I realize it's a slow-drip thing. But it feels like the biggest piece is still missing.
Click to expand...

Right. Lo-Volt's last paragraph isn't supported by the evidence here. The fact that Smith had campaign / administration official names in his documents is fishy and worth following up on, but doesn't actually indicate a "conspiracy". The one document alone doesn't show that the officials named were even aware of any of this.
 
A

Autodidact

Banned
Zolo said:
Conway seems like she'd be pretty easy to flip if she's involved.
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Yeah, she's an opportunist, not a true believer. She worked for Ted Cruz before she saw where her real fortunes lay. I doubt she has any loyalty once the paycheck stops.

She also has young children and would probably want to avoid prison.
 
L

Lo-Volt

Member
hendersonhank said:
I'm not sure I'm entirely understanding the significance of this.

Repub guy talks to Russians to see if they have some damaging Hillary info they can share.

How exactly is that different from Dem guys hiring Steele's firm to get damaging info on Trump from Russians?

Even if Trump campaign peeps knew of and/or approved of this, is that illegal? Isn't digging for dirt on the opponent, or seeking to obtain dirt that others have dug up, an unfortunate part of politics? If say Podesta had been aware of what Steele was doing or authorized it, would that be a bombshell?
Click to expand...

If I remember it right: the Journal's story from earlier this week basically warned that the Republican effort was contacting, or seeking out, hackers connected to the Russian government. That's no longer opposition research or even private enterprise.

Brakke said:
Right. Lo-Volt's last paragraph isn't supported by the evidence here. The fact that Smith had campaign / administration official names in his documents is fishy and worth following up on, but doesn't actually indicate a "conspiracy". The one document alone doesn't show that the officials named were even aware of any of this.
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In my defense, I ended it by meaning to say "we're running out of alibis". :-D I'm just a newshound. I don't know they're guilty. But they do become suspect; I think that's a fair thing to say considering what's happened. If your name or mine appeared on a document like that when the U.S. government is investigating Russian interference in the election, you think we wouldn't we be getting a call from the G-men?
 
S

skullmuffins

Banned
H

hendersonhank

Member
Lo-Volt said:
If I remember it right: the Journal's story from earlier this week basically warned that the Republican effort was contacting, or seeking out, hackers connected to the Russian government. That's no longer opposition research or even private enterprise.
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I guess it would be the attempting to procure the services of hackers to illegally steal those emails that would be the crime? But I thought Smith just wanted to obtain or use emails the hackers had already obtained on their own, before there had ever been any communication between him and them.

Steele seems to have reached out to sources in the Russian government to obtain damaging Trump info at the behest of Democrats, so I'm still a little confused why the Smith stuff is seen as so different.

Brakke said:
"Digging for dirt" is different than "doing a computer crime" or "paying people that did a crime".
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True, but musn't some of the info shared with Steele by his Russian sources have been obtained illegally?
 
Z

Zolo

Member
Brakke said:
"Digging for dirt" is different than "doing a computer crime" or "paying people that did a crime".
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Also, if I remember right, the Trump dossier happened due to intercepting communications between Russia and the Trump administration with the investigation mainly being done by the intelligence community. Not the same as a running team paying people to do crimes to win an election.
 
T

TunaMarshmallow

Member
Nothing would make me happier than seeing the administration crumble. But this still feels too scattershot. There's not (yet) anything approaching a cohesive narrative.

Was it campaign officials giving oral orders for geriatric political operatives to buy illegally obtained intelligence from Russian hackers? Or is the problem that campaign officials were serving as foreign agents by giving paid talks and lobbying for foreign governments? Or is the issue that the transition team violated governance and diplomacy laws by having improper and/or undisclosed meetings with Russian officials prior to the transfer of power? Or is the problem that Kushner wanted to establish an unmonitored back channel communication system with the Kremlin? Or is the issue that shell companies that could be connected to Trump or Trump's team were involved in massive transfers of wealth from Europe (including Russia) leading up to the election?

Of course, True Believers from our side (and, on certain days, I am one!) can look at all this and say: "Where there's smoke, there's fire! These people are crooks!" And, sure, maybe. But the problem is that there's nothing close to a narrative, that I'm aware of, that ties this all together. And one can begin to worry that, instead of a conspiracy, you're just looking at a big mixture of slimeball politics, people being politically idiotic and not knowing how to govern, and historically commonplace conflicts of interest that we're now putting under the microscope for the first time.

Nothing -- NOTHING -- would make me happier than these pieces of shit being caught red-handed and hauled to prison. But I'm not seeing the big picture yet. <shrugs>
 
M

mackaveli

Member
hendersonhank said:
I guess it would be the attempting to procure the services of hackers to illegally steal those emails that would be the crime? But I thought Smith just wanted to obtain or use emails the hackers had already obtained on their own, before there had ever been any communication between him and them.

Steele seems to have reached out to sources in the Russian government to obtain damaging Trump info at the behest of Democrats, so I'm still a little confused why the Smith stuff is seen as so different.



True, but musn't some of the info shared with Steele by his Russian sources have been obtained illegally?
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A gop firm hired Steele to look into trump not democrats.
 
Z

Zips

Member
The biggest indication of guilt for me is the recent preemptive defense of 'well collusion isn't a crime' by right-wing media.

This is exciting for now making us like one or two steps away from confirming collusion directly to Trump and his team, even just off what is publicly known.
 
U

UrokeJoe

Member
TunaMarshmallow said:
Nothing would make me happier than seeing the administration crumble. But this still feels too scattershot. There's not (yet) anything approaching a cohesive narrative.

Was it campaign officials giving oral orders for geriatric political operatives to buy illegally obtained intelligence from Russian hackers? Or is the problem that campaign officials were serving as foreign agents by giving paid talks and lobbying for foreign governments? Or is the issue that the transition team violated governance and diplomacy laws by having improper and/or undisclosed meetings with Russian officials prior to the transfer of power? Or is the problem that Kushner wanted to establish an unmonitored back channel communication system with the Kremlin? Or is the issue that shell companies that could be connected to Trump or Trump's team were involved in massive transfers of wealth from Europe (including Russia) leading up to the election?

Of course, True Believers from our side (and, on certain days, I am one!) can look at all this and say: "Where there's smoke, there's fire! These people are crooks!" And, sure, maybe. But the problem is that there's nothing close to a narrative, that I'm aware of, that ties this all together. And one can begin to worry that, instead of a conspiracy, you're just looking at a big mixture of slimeball politics, people being politically idiotic and not knowing how to govern, and historically commonplace conflicts of interest that we're now putting under the microscope for the first time.

Nothing -- NOTHING -- would make me happier than these pieces of shit being caught red-handed and hauled to prison. But I'm not seeing the big picture yet. <shrugs>
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Know this feeling..... and I will treasure the day!
 
H

hendersonhank

Member
Zolo said:
Also, if I remember right, the Trump dossier happened due to intercepting communications between Russia and the Trump administration with the investigation mainly being done by the intelligence community. Not the same as a running team paying people to do crimes to win an election.
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The Steele dossier was put together by Steele, as a job for his firm to collect damaging info on Trump. They were his own sources in the Russian government/intelligence.

And from what has been revealed so far, Smith was not paying anyone to do crimes. "verify whether emails offered to the group by hackers" -- the hackers offered him the emails, supposedly, they didn't steal them at his request.

mackaveli said:
A gop firm hired Steele to look into trump not democrats.
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Ah yes, I forgot. And then once Trump won the nomination, Dems took over paying Steele for his work iirc. Still. It's either a crime or it isn't, regardless of whether it's Dems or Repubs writing the checks.
 
B

Brakke

Banned
mackaveli said:
A gop firm hired Steele to look into trump not democrats.
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Some unknown Democrat took up the funding after Trump won the primary.

I don't know enough about the Steele dossier to carry this through. The analogy isn't super interesting to me either way. If Steele did crimes or worked with crimesters then yeah sure charge him. But Steele was sharing his work directly with the FBI, so it's not like law enforcement never took a look at him lol.
 
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