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[hendersonhank]

No evidence Smith knew or at least thought they were Russian? Are you even reading the articles?

My bad. In any case, thinking some were probably Russians, even from the government, is no different from the information Steele provided his clients. He went straight to sources in the Russian government and FSB for information damaging to Trump. Were his clients guilty of collusion?

The law prohibits foreign nationals from providing “anything of value … in connection with” an election. The hacking of the Podesta emails, which were then transmitted to Wikileaks for posting, clearly had value, and its connection to the election is not disputed.

Again, this would seem to apply at least as much to the information given to Steele by Russians, including government officials and FSB, and passed on by him to his clients who knew exactly where he was getting this information, and in fact deliberately hired him to get that information from specifically those (Russian) sources.

 

[skullmuffins]

Smith, I think, was on something of a wild goose chase. If Russian hackers did have Hillary's emails, I don't see why they wouldn't have been released at some point, like what happened with the DNC and Podesta hacks.

However, if Smith was acting with the knowledge and blessing of the campaign to try to obtain and release documents stolen from a US person by hackers working on behalf of a hostile foreign government, I think that's pretty newsworthy. I also don't think that this is going to be the smoking gun of collusion.

Nobody is talking about Steele and the Democrats colluding with Russia because, for one, the Russian government was not trying to help Hillary win the election. Two, afaik the dossier was funded by PACs or other interested parties and not the campaigns themselves (first Republican, then Democratic, before Steele went to the FBI with the information). The Steele dossier, while possibly compiled with the help of (rogue) foreign intelligence, is largely documenting the Russian attempts to influence our election and how Trump and his campaign were working with the Russians to do so. The information is only damaging to Trump insofar as it claims that Trump was compromised by the Russians and colluding with them to swing the election!

The two things are not remotely comparable.

 

[chadskin]

My bad. In any case, thinking some were probably Russians, even from the government, is no different from the information Steele provided his clients. He went straight to sources in the Russian government and FSB for information damaging to Trump. Were his clients guilty of collusion?

Again, this would seem to apply at least as much to the information given to Steele by Russians, including government officials and FSB, and passed on by him to his clients who knew exactly where he was getting this information, and in fact deliberately hired him to get that information from specifically those (Russian) sources.

What separates them is this: Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based company which in turn was hired initially by a Republican opposed to Trump and later continued to be paid by Democrats. To my knowledge, there is no clear, direct link to any Republican or Democratic presidential campaign.

The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort.

But Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton were very interested, and Fusion GPS kept doing the same deep dives, but on behalf of new clients.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-intelligence.html

In contrast, if Flynn in his capacity as a Trump campaign official (or any other Trump campaign official) directed or approved of what Smith was doing, that ties the Trump presidential campaign directly to efforts by the Russian government to obtain and disseminate Clinton's emails, as they reportedly were discussing:

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.

I won't discount the possibility that what Fusion GPS / Steele did did in fact violate the law, I'm not a lawyer and will leave judgement to them, but at least based on what we know publicly it wouldn't affect any of the presidential campaign.

 

[Deuce Deuce]

Any of the other large publications pick this story up besides the WSJ?

 

[hendersonhank]

What separates them is this: Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, a Washington-based company which in turn was hired initially by a Republican opposed to Trump and later continued to be paid by Democrats. To my knowledge, there is no clear, direct link to any Republican or Democratic presidential campaign.

We don't know exactly who paid him. In any case, is it a crime or isn't it? I don't recall a single person anywhere, ever, from either side, who suggested that either the Dems or Repubs that paid Steele to use his sources inside the Russian government and Russian intelligence to obtain damaging info on a candidate, with the goal of "influencing the election" in favor of their own candidate presumably, were doing anything wrong.


I think there's a reason that Washington Post, CNN, etc have not even mentioned this story at all as far as I can tell.

 

[BlastProcessing]

We don't know exactly who paid him. In any case, is it a crime or isn't it? I don't recall a single person anywhere, ever, from either side, who suggested that either the Dems or Repubs that paid Steele to use his sources inside the Russian government and Russian intelligence to obtain damaging info on a candidate, with the goal of "influencing the election" in favor of their own candidate presumably, were doing anything wrong.


I think there's a reason that Washington Post, CNN, etc have not even mentioned this story at all as far as I can tell.

The reason being that the WSJ story relies on sourcing from someone who is now dead. WaPo and CNN aren't going to run a story like this without their own sources...

 

[skullmuffins]

The reason being that the WSJ story relies on sourcing from someone who is now dead. WaPo and CNN aren't going to run a story like this without their own sources...

Yeah, I think that's really throwing a wrench into other outlets being able to confirm the story.

FWIW, though, the WSJ reporter went on both MSNBC and CNN to discuss the story when it first broke.

 

[chadskin]

We don't know exactly who paid him. In any case, is it a crime or isn't it? I don't recall a single person anywhere, ever, from either side, who suggested that either the Dems or Repubs that paid Steele to use his sources inside the Russian government and Russian intelligence to obtain damaging info on a candidate, with the goal of "influencing the election" in favor of their own candidate presumably, were doing anything wrong.

We do, Fusion GPS paid him. And we know a Republican donor and Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton paid Fusion GPS.

What we don't know in most cases is who Steele's sources are. One is said to be a businessman, not someone in the Russian government or intelligence.

 

[ayeorkean]

Chicago Tribune: Peter W. Smith, GOP operative who sought Clinton's emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show

 

[NullPointer]

Chicago Tribune: Peter W. Smith, GOP operative who sought Clinton's emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show

Jesus.

Though it should be known that the reporter he spoke to about his oppo research said that Mr. Smith had absolutely no misgivings about what he was up to, so that big WSJ story doesn't seem to have been some kind of regretful deathbed confession.

 

[Thaedolus]

Uhh this should be a new thread?

 

[Autodidact]

Did he shoot himself in the back of the head?

 

[cooljeanius]

Did he shoot himself in the back of the head?

The article says it was a bag of helium over his head...

 

[Steel]

Uhh this should be a new thread?

Yep.

 

[kirblar]

Uhh this should be a new thread?

Definitely

 

[Fenderputty]

Benjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes

Please stand by, people: @lawfareblog will be publishing an important piece tonight by @pwnallthethings you will not want to miss.

edit: @pwnallthethings is a "serious guy, a former GCHQ hacker" according to wittes
edit2: he is the matt tait cited as a source by WSJ

Yeah their last drop was from pwnallthethings too. I'm not sure how he's going to add more to the story than he's already done though. Nor am I sure what he added before was of any use.

 

[Shauni]

That shit sounded really shady at first until you got down a little further. Good thing all of this came out beforehand.

 

[Jackpot]

...which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.

Won't suicide void the payout?

 

[Autodidact]

Yeah their last drop was from pwnallthethings too. I'm not sure how he's going to add more to the story than he's already done though. Nor am I sure what he added before was of any use.

You responded to a post from June 30.

 

[HStallion]

Did he shoot himself in the back of the head?

No just fell on some bullets

 

[Random Human]

Chicago Tribune: Peter W. Smith, GOP operative who sought Clinton's emails from Russian hackers, committed suicide, records show

Um...

 

[Fenderputty]

You responded to a post from June 30.

I just realized this

 

[Jackpot]

No just fell on some bullets

Before people jump on a Seth Rich-esque conspiracy theory, the article linked has a lot of details on the guy's death.

 

[Autodidact]

Won't suicide void the payout?

Not if the suicide clause has expired, usually after two years.

My grandparents knew someone who got into a car accident that left his wife paralyzed. He obtained a life insurance policy, waited two years almost to the day, and hanged himself so she could get the payout.

 

[Shauni]

Won't suicide void the payout?

I think some really high-end plans cover suicide as well, but I'm not sure. The thing sounds super shady, but the more you read, less so. It was a weird way to suicide, but apparently it's not unheard of and is painless. Morgue guy says he's seen it before.

 

[HStallion]

Before people jump on a Seth Rich-esque conspiracy theory, the article linked has a lot of details on the guy's death.

I figured that was silly enough a comment to not be taken seriously lol

 

[Jackpot]

I figured that was silly enough a comment to not be taken seriously lol

it's ok, it was just the most recent one to use as the base for a catch-all preemptive warning for the conspiracy theorists who lurk.

 

[TheCochese]

No idea why it needed a new thread. The entire thread is literally about one person.

And he died months ago, just the how is new.

 

[Greigor The Fellhand]

An employee with Rochester Cremation Services, the funeral home that responded to the hotel, said he helped remove Smith's body from his room and recalled seeing a tank.

The employee, who spoke on the condition he not be identified because of the sensitive nature of Smith's death, described the tank as being similar in size to a propane tank on a gas grill. He did not recall seeing a bag that Smith would have placed over his head. He said the coroner and police were there and that he "didn't do a lot of looking around."

"When I got there and saw the tank, I thought, 'I've seen this before,' and was able to put two and two together," the employee said.

An autopsy was conducted, according to the death record. The Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner's Office declined a Tribune request for the autopsy report and released limited information about Smith's death.