Mueller report connects late Lake Forest operative Peter Smith to Michael Flynn

WASHINGTON – Throughout 2016, the Trump campaign was on the hunt for some 30,000 emails that had been on Hillary Clinton’s private server, a quest that led adviser Michael Flynn to contact the late Lake Forest investor and Republican activist Peter Smith, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report released Thursday.

Smith was known in GOP circles for his obsessive dislike of the Clintons, going back decades, and his penchant for funding secretive research operations to dig up dirt on Democrats he despised.

Smith’s search for Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers has been the subject of many news stories. The Mueller report revealed for the first time Flynn reached out to Smith after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump leaned on him to find the emails.

Smith, 81, committed suicide on May 14, 2017. He was found in a hotel room near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The Mueller probe “did not establish” that Smith contacted Russian hackers or that he or anyone in the Trump campaign found the deleted Clinton emails.

It wasn’t for lack of trying.

After Trump said on July 27, 2016, he hoped Russia would find Clinton’s e-mails, he “asked individuals affiliated with his campaign” to find them, the Mueller report states.

Flynn, the ex-White House national security adviser, cooperating with probers after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, told investigators, “Trump made this request repeatedly.”

The Mueller report stated Flynn contacted Smith and Barbara Ledeen, a staffer for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Ledeen, it turned out, was already on the case.

Ledeen started her hunt “as early as December 2015” – before Flynn’s request – and emailed Smith a proposal to secure his help in obtaining the emails on Dec. 3, 2015, according to the Mueller report.

Smith’s Chicago associate, John Szobocsan, provided Mueller’s team with information about Ledeen and Smith’s pursuit of the Clinton emails, according to citations in the Mueller report.

The report does not state why Flynn decided to go to Smith and Ledeen, but there are some connections to note.

Ledeen’s husband, Michael, co-wrote a book with Flynn. News reports said she turned to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for help. Back in the day, Smith was close to Gingrich – who served as House speaker from 1995 to 1999 – who would have been well aware of Smith’s opposition research campaigns.

I initially wrote about Smith in a March 31, 1998, Sun-Times article where he acknowledged for the first time bankrolling – eventually spending $80,000 – a story about Arkansas state troopers allegedly procuring women for then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. That story in the American Spectator Magazine launched a chain of events that led to the Ken Starr report and Clinton’s 1998 House impeachment and 1999 Senate acquittal.

Smith’s regret, he told me in 1998, was: “I feel like a failure for not having it out before the 1992 election.”

The Mueller report said Smith told Ledeen on Dec. 16, 2015, he did not want to “participate in her ‘initiative.’” That was after she sent him a 25-page proposal that included the observation that the finding of even a “single email” would be “catastrophic to the Clinton campaign.”

Smith forwarded that email to Szobocsan and Jonathan Safron, then a law student in Chicago who was Smith’s assistant. The Mueller report indicates that investigators interviewed Safron on March 20, 2018, and Szobocsan on March 29, 2018.

Sometime after Trump put out the call in July 2016, Smith had a change of heart and “tried to locate and obtain the emails himself.”

On Sept. 2, 2016, Smith asked Szobocsan to help form a company, KLS Research LLC, to house his Clinton email search operation. Smith “raised tens of thousands of dollars” and recruited “security experts and business associates.” KLS received about $30,000, the report stated.

Smith made claims to potential funders that he was in contact with Russian affiliated hackers with access to Clinton emails and “that his efforts were coordinated with the Trump campaign.”

Though Smith bragged in a fundraising document about top Trump campaign staff being involved, Mueller’s report determined Smith had communications only with Flynn and Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis. There was no evidence they “directed Smith’s efforts.”

Mueller’s investigators who conducted a forensic analysis of Smith’s computers found drafts of emails from Smith “intimating” he was in contact with Russian hackers.

The investigation found no evidence that was true.

“The investigation did not establish that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers” or that any deleted Clinton emails were obtained by Smith, Ledeen or anyone in the Trump campaign.

Smith and Szobocsan had been associates through the years in a variety of companies.

Szobocsan made a claim from Smith’s estate for at least $175,000, according to documents filed in the probate section of the Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan.

In a court filing, Szobocsan said he was owed $150,000 for his work doing “research and analysis” for various Smith enterprises.

Szobocsan also wants $25,000 to $30,000 from Smith’s estate to pay his legal fees because he was, the court filing said, “required to retain counsel for three meetings with representatives of the Mueller Special Counsel and a meeting with attorneys from the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

MUELLER CONFIRMS RUSSIAN ATTEMPTS TO HACK ILLINOIS ELECTION BOARD

The Mueller report confirmed that Russian intelligence agents tried to hack the Illinois Board of Elections website in June 2016 “by exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE’s website … to “gain access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters and extracted data related to thousands of U.S. voters before the malicious activity was identified,” the report states.

The Sun-Times reported in 2017 the hack had nothing to do with counting votes in elections in Illinois. The hackers looked at voting registration data: name, address, date of birth, gender and the last four digits of the Social Security number. In all, hackers searched through about 80,000 records, with the elections board confirming the records of just under 3,000 voters were viewed by the hackers.

QUIGLEY, KRISHNAMOORTHI

Mueller tossed the ball to Congress in the report. Democrats are bashing Attorney General William Barr’s report redactions – and his Thursday morning press conference defending Trump before the report was released.

Illinois Democratic Reps. Mike Quigley and Raja Krishnamoorthi serve on the House Intelligence Committee, one of four panels conducting Trump-related investigations.

“We don’t have any of the underlying documents, and that’s critical and that’s important,” Quigley told the Sun-Times.

The major finding in the report, Quigley said, were the 10 “episodes” raising questions about whether Trump obstructed justice. Though Trump’s instructions were not carried out, “it’s still criminal conduct by the president of the United States,” Quigley said.

“That’s a devastating finding of the report.”

Krishnamoorthi told the Sun-Times that Mueller’s stated inability to come to a conclusion about obstruction shows he should “have subpoenaed the president, and he should have investigated it further.”

On impeachment, Krishnamoorthi said it’s premature for Democrats to consider such action. Mueller is expected to testify next month before Democratic-led House panels. “I personally think that the next step is Mueller and what he has to say. … What he has to say about the president will in part influence the next steps.”

With the Passover and Easter holidays approaching, House Democrats will wait until Monday to discuss the next steps in a conference call.