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The following “excerpt” is lifted from a 6-30-17 blog post by Matt Tait — A British CyberSecurity Consultant —-> https://www.lawfareblog.com — (Matt Tait is the CEO and founder of Capital Alpha Security, a UK based security consultancy which focuses on research into software vulnerabilities, exploit mitigations and applied cryptography.)
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On June 14, 2016 the Washington Post reported on a hack of the DNC ostensibly by Russian intelligence. Material from this hack began appearing online, courtesy of the “Guccifer 2” online persona.
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A few weeks later, right around the time the DNC emails were dumped by Wikileaks—and curiously, around the same time Trump called for the Russians to get Hillary Clinton’s missing emails— Matt Tait was contacted out of the blue by a man named Peter Smith, who had seen Tait’s work going through these emails. Smith implied that he was a well-connected Republican political operative who knew Lt. General Michael Flynn, who would go on to become Trump’s 1st National Security Advisor, as well as Flynn’s son, very well.
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Although it wasn’t initially clear to Tait how independent Smith’s operation was from Flynn or the Trump campaign, 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. Flynn and his son well. Smith routinely talked about the goings on at the top of the Trump team, offering deep insights into the bizarre world at the top of the Trump campaign. Smith told of Flynn’s deep dislike of Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, whom Flynn blamed for his dismissal by President Obama. Smith told of Flynn’s moves to position himself to become CIA Director under Trump, but also that Flynn had been persuaded that the Senate confirmation process would be prohibitively difficult. He would instead therefore become National Security Advisor should Trump win the election, Smith said. He also told of a deep sense of angst even among Trump loyalists in the campaign, saying “Trump often just repeats whatever he’s heard from the last person who spoke to him,” and expressing the view that this was especially dangerous when Trump was away.
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Yet Smith had not contacted Tait about the DNC hack, but rather about his conviction that Hillary Clinton’s private email server had been hacked—in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too—and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election. Over the course of a long phone call, Smith mentioned that he had been contacted by someone on the “Dark Web” who claimed to have a copy of emails from Secretary Clinton’s private server, and this was why he had contacted Tait; Smith wanted Tait to help validate whether or not the emails were genuine.
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Tait explained that if someone had contacted Smith via the “Dark Web” with Clinton’s personal emails, Smith should take very seriously the possibility that this may have been part of a wider Russian campaign against the United States. And Tait said Smith need not take Tait’s word for it, pointing to a number of occasions where US officials had made it clear that this was the view of the U.S. intelligence community as well.
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Smith, however, didn’t seem to care. From his perspective it didn’t matter who had taken the emails, or their motives for doing so. He never expressed to Tait any discomfort with the possibility that the emails he was seeking were potentially from a Russian front, a likelihood he was happy to acknowledge. If they were genuine, they would hurt Clinton’s chances, and therefore help Trump.
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Towards the end of one of their conversations, Smith made his pitch. He said that his team had been contacted by someone on the “dark web”; that this person had the emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server (which she had subsequently deleted), and that Smith wanted to establish if the emails were genuine. If so, he wanted to ensure that they became public prior to the election. What he wanted from Tait was to determine if the emails were genuine or not.
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It is no overstatement to say that Tait’s conversations with Smith shocked Tait. Given the amount of media attention given at the time to the likely involvement of the Russian government in the DNC hack, it seemed mind-boggling for the Trump campaign—or for this offshoot of it—to be actively seeking those emails. To Tait this felt really wrong.
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In Tait’s conversations with Smith and his colleague, Tait tried to stress this point: if this dark web contact is a front for the Russian government, you really don’t want to play this game. But Smith & his colleague were not discouraged. They appeared to be convinced of the need to obtain Clinton’s private emails and make them public, and they had a reckless lack of interest in whether the emails came from a Russian cut-out. Indeed, they made it quite clear to Tait that it made no difference to them who hacked the emails or why they did so, only that the emails be found and made public before the election.
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Then, a few weeks into Tait’s interactions with Smith, Smith sent Tait a document, ostensibly a cover page for a dossier of opposition research to be compiled by Smith’s group, and which purported to clear up who was involved. 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.
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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.
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Tait’s perception then was that the inclusion of Trump campaign officials on this document was not merely a name-dropping exercise. This document was about establishing a company to conduct opposition research on behalf of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, but operating at a distance so as to avoid campaign reporting. Indeed, the document says as much in black and white.
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The combination of Smith’s deep knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, this document naming him in the “Trump campaign” group, and the multiple references to needing to avoid campaign reporting suggested to Tait that the group was formed with the blessing of the Trump campaign. In the Wall Street Journal’s story of June 29, 2017, several of the individuals named in the document denied any connection to Smith, and it’s certainly possible that he was a big name-dropper and never really represented anyone other than himself. If that’s the case, Smith talked a very good game.
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After all, Clinton’s private emails never materialized. We couldn’t show that Smith had been in contact with actual Russians. And while Tait believed—and still does—that Smith was operating with some degree of coordination with the campaign, that was at least a little murky too. The story just didn’t make much sense—that is, until the Wall Street Journal’s June 29, 2017 new article cited the critical fact that U.S. intelligence had reported that Russian hackers were looking to get emails to Flynn through a cut-out during the Summer of 2016, and so this was now no mere idle speculation on anyone’s part.
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Suddenly, this story seems important—and ominous.
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A "3"-MIN. ---- (AUDIO) ---- OUR "841ST" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRUMP --- IRAN --- 'DEAD-END'!!!" -----------------------------------------------------------------------‐ [RECORDED ON --- 4-1-26] 
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