Operation Peter Smith News Today

Conservative media, supporters of mr. trump have started to say if anybody did collude with the russians in this attack, thats okay. thats not a big deal. were not going to be upset about that if we learn that. heres what appears to be the first concrete evidence of an attempt by americans to collude with the russians in their attack. boom. joining us now, shane harris, national security senior writer for "the wall street journal." mr. harris, congratulations on this tonight. i really appreciate...

Over and over again that he was doing this with mike flynn, who definitely did work for the trump campaign at the time. this was all happening around labor day. mike flynn had joined the trump campaign months earlier. he was a senior adviser to the trump campaign. peter smith, this republican operative in chicago, reportedly said he was in direct communication with flynn about what he was doing while he was doing it, quoting from the journal tonight, quote, in conversations with members of his c...

? >> sure. oddly enough, peter smith reached out to me. he apparently learned i was looking around and interested in him, which is true. my knowledge of what he was involved in predated my first contact with him. he reached out to me and we had a conversation about what he was doing, which was fairly extensive and obviously hes quoted in the story. and it was at that point that when we suspend that conversation that i continued doing reporting and assumed in this case perhaps incorrectly that i ...

Investigators stumbled on evidence or found evidence of what smith was doing and thats part of the potential collusion that they are investigating? >> thats not entirely clear at this point. i think my best kind of assessment of this is that what we have found may be one end of something that other investigators are looking at. you know, as we said in the piece, its not entirely clear that investigators who have seen this intelligence about russian hackers describing a situation looks very simil...

Russian government attack. but last summer by late june, it was credibly being reported that that attack by the democratic party appeared to be an attack by the russian government. by labor day, "the washington post" reported this mega story on the russian attack on the institutions of our election and u.s. government efforts to identify and counter the attack. tonight "the wall street journal" reports, shane harris reports, on that very labor day weekend last year, a longtime republican opposit...

Journal" intended outsiders to join the work, smith offered to make introductions to mike flynns son, who worked at chief of staff in his fathers company. in another recruiting e-mails seen by "the wall street journal," a law student mr. smith described as a close colleague included links to the websites and linkedin profiles of people purportedly working with smiths team trying to contact the weapons. at the top of the list was mike flynns consulting groups. according to the expert, he told mr....

From the trump campaign. quote, a trump campaign official said that pert -- peter smith did not work for the campaign and if mike flynn coordinated with mike smith in any way, it it would have been in his capacity as a private individual, even though flynn was a senior adviser to the trump campaign. at the time this was happening. flynn was on board with the trump campaign at the time this was happening. flynn was senior adviser to the trump campaign at the time this was happening, soon to be de...

Weekend this past year according to "the wall street journal," quote, assembled a group of technology experts, lawyers and a russian-speaking investigator based in europe to try to acquire e-mails that the group theorized might have been stolen from the private server that hillary clinton used as secretary of state. so put yourself in the time frame were talking about, this is labor day weekend. by that point, by that time there really had been democratic e-mails stolen from the dnc and we would...

This on behalf of the trump campaign. as the journal puts it, "this appears to be an independent campaign by mr. smith." they actually put it in the subhead of the article. nobody says peter smith was part of the trump campaign when he did this with the russians. so to the extent he might have did this as an attempt to collude with the russian or what sources close to the russian government while they were attacking our election. that is on him and the other americans who worked with him. that i...

Interview. in which he described what he did. in terms of corroborating his account, theres big news on that front. quote, the operation peter smith described is consistent with information that has been examined by u.s. investigators probing russian interference in the elections. according to u.s. officials with knowledge of the intelligence, quote, investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe russian hackers discussing how to obtain e-mails from mrs. clintons se...