Free Republic

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The victory party took on the feel of an evangelical worship service after Doug Mastriano won Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial primary this month. As a Christian singer led the crowd in song, some raised their arms toward the heavens in praise. Mastriano opened his remarks by evoking Scripture: “God uses the foolish to confound the wise.” He claimed Pennsylvanians’ freedom would be “snatched away” if his Democratic opponent wins in November, and cast the election in starkly religious terms with another biblical reference: “Let’s choose this day to serve the Lord.” Mastriano, a state senator and retired Army...

A veteran Republican activist who attempted to find Hillary Clinton's emails stolen by hackers had ties with Gen. Michael Flynn, a relationship that that may have played a direct role in his quest, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Sources told the Journal that Peter Smith had a professional relationship with Flynn as early as 2015, when the two had a meeting just after Flynn left his position at the top of the Defense Intelligence Agency. In an email the Journal reviewed, a former associate of Smith's, Joe Szobocsan, wrote to a friend last week, "As you...

A GOP opposition researcher raised at least $100,000 as part of an effort to hunt down emails thought to be stolen from Hillary Clinton's private email server, according to a report Sunday. Peter Smith, who is now dead, sought and collected donations from four people as part of a plan to obtain Clinton’s stolen emails from hackers just weeks from the election, the Wall Street Journal reported. The FBI is investigating the fundraising campaign as part of it's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Smith died in May 2017, days after talking to the Journal about his efforts....

The GOP operative who admitted reaching out to Russian hackers for Hillary Clinton’s emails killed himself days after opening up to a reporter. Peter Smith told the Wall Street Journal in May that he reached out to people he believed were affiliated with the Kremlin to find messages from the Democrat’s private server. The Journal report from late last month, which showed that he had claimed to be working with future National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, said Smith died about 10 days after the conversation.

A Wall Street analyst who spoke to Peter Smith the day before he reportedly committed suicide told the Daily Caller News Foundation there were no indications the Chicago businessman and anti-Clinton political investigator was about to take his life. [ ] “This does not seem like a settled story. It made perfect sense to me he might have died of natural causes, but little chance he would have killed himself,” Ortel said. [ ] Ortel vigorously dismissed the allegation that Smith took his own life. Ortel, who may have been the last person to speak with Smith prior to his...

A Wall Street analyst who spoke to Peter Smith the day before he reportedly committed suicide told the Daily Caller News Foundation there were no indications the Chicago businessman and anti-Clinton political investigator was about to take his life. “He may have been a fantastic actor but I certainly didn’t leave that phone call saying, ‘oh shit, the guy’s at the end of his rope,’” Charles Ortel, a Wall Street investment banker and market analyst, told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group.

Add him to the Clinton Body Count List! Peter W. Smith, 81, was found dead just 10 days after he admitted to trying to get Hillary Clinton’s missing emails from Russian hackers. He left a note behind in all caps saying there was “NO FOUL PLAY” involved. Smith was found with a bag tied over his head, attached to a helium source.

A Republican donor and operative from Chicago's North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show. In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring. Days earlier, the financier...

A Republican donor and operative from Chicago's North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show. In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring. Days earlier, the financier...

Peter W. Smith portrayed the former general as an ally in an effort, independent of the Trump campaign, to find personal emails deleted by Hillary Clinton WASHINGTON—Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers. In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn.

WASHINGTON—Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers. In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn

Leon Panetta was in Washington [9-12] and had planned to fly back to Monterey that evening. But with the nation’s airports shut down, he was stuck. I’m seriously considering a rental car, said Panetta.