How Trump Ally Tried to Recruit Others to Interfere in 2016 Election
It was reported earlier that a longtime Republican operative named Peter Smith attempted to acquire emails he thought were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server by Russian hackers.
Smith tried to recruit others, including Matt Tait who described his interactions with Smith in a first-person blog post in Lawfare.
Tait noted, “It was immediately apparent that Smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the [Trump] campaign and he seemed to know both Lt. Gen. [Michael] Flynn and his son well.”
Tait describes a dossier Smith has put together and explained:
“The document was entitled ‘A Demonstrative Pedagogical Summary to be Developed and Released Prior to November 8, 2016,’ and dated September 7. It detailed a company Smith and his colleagues had set up as a vehicle to conduct the research: KLS Research, set up as a Delaware LLC ‘to avoid campaign reporting,’ and listing four groups who were involved in one way or another. The first group, entitled ‘Trump Campaign (in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure)’ listed a number of senior campaign officials: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn and Lisa Nelson.”
Tait admits, “I spent a great deal of time studying the series of Freedom of Information disclosures by the State Department of Hillary Clinton’s emails, and posting the parts I found most interesting — especially those relevant to computer security — on my public Twitter account.”
Smith saw Tait’s accounts and reached out to him to recruit him.
According to his account, Tait tried to tell Smith that the “Dark Web” who has Clinton’s alleged stolen emails could be a cover for the Russian government.
Tait wrote, “They were not discouraged” by this.
Read the full article Tait wrote on Lawfare here.
GOP Operative Connected To Flynn Asked Hackers For Clinton Emails: Report
