Trump directed Flynn to find Clinton's emails, Flynn reached out to Grassley's staffer & PETER SMITH

[MelissaB]

PETER SMITH was contacted by Michael Flynn to find the deleted Clinton emails, at Trump's request, per Mueller.

Link to tweet

NEW: Trump personally directed Mike Flynn to find Hillary Clinton's deleted emails, special counsel says. Flynn then reached out to GOP operative Peter Smith and Grassley staffer Barbara Ledeen, who embarked on parallel efforts to obtain them from hackers.

Link to tweet

Peter Smith was the GOP operative who "committed suicide".

[malaise]

1. I questioned his suicide way back when

Never bought it

[MelissaB]

2. Nope. I didn't, either.

[angstlessk]

4. Here is an article from NY Post re: Peter Smith suicide

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/muellers-quiet-but-suspicious-russia-clues-keep-popping-up.html

About 1/2 way down:

Most interestingly, the Journal got in touch with somebody who spoke with Smith shortly before his death. “Retired Wall Street financier Charles Ortel said he spoke with Mr. Smith on the phone in the hours before his death about a new project to brief the Obama Foundation and warn its leaders against the mistakes they believed were made by the Clinton Foundation,” reports the Journal. “According to Mr. Ortel, Mr. Smith sounded excited, and he began brainstorming who to contact and how to proceed.”

As Betsy Woodruff reported earlier this summer, and as Ryan Goodman noted, Mueller recently added to his team attorney Kathryn Rakoczy, “best known for her work on violent crime cases.” This would support the likelihood that Mueller is investigating Smith’s death as a murder. It is obviously possible that Smith suddenly decided to commit suicide after this conversation without betraying any hint of his intention, and while sounding excited about a future plan. But it is looking increasingly plausible that somebody in fact killed him.

[malaise]

5. Thanks for the link

[RockRaven]

3. Wasn't he the guy who left a "no foul play" suicide note?

Yeah, nothing weird about that.

[MelissaB]

6. Updated OP with Barbara Ledeem, Grassley's staffer info.