# Peter W. Smith Chicago-area investment banker and longtime Republican donor who in 2016 tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's deleted emails from hackers, including ones he believed were tied to the Russian government. He is the documented private-sector end of Trump's campaign-season demand to find the emails, and he connects the 1990s anti-Clinton oppo world to 2016. ## Timeline | Date | Event | |---|---| | 1993–94 | Funds about $80,000 of "Troopergate" work against Bill Clinton, including payments tied to Arkansas state troopers and meetings with then-conservative writer [[David Brock]] | | Dec 2015 | Receives, and declines, an email-hunting proposal from a Senate staffer | | After July 27, 2016 | After Trump "repeatedly" asked aides to find the deleted emails (Mueller, Vol. I), [[Michael Flynn]] contacts Smith about finding them | | Sept 2, 2016 | Forms KLS Research LLC in Delaware to fund the effort, raising tens of thousands of dollars | | May 14, 2017 | Dies by suicide at 81 in a Rochester, Minnesota hotel, leaving a note that said "NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER" | | June 29, 2017 | *The Wall Street Journal* publishes an interview given days before his death: "We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government" | ## What Mueller found The special counsel did **not** establish that Smith was in contact with Russian hackers or that any deleted emails were obtained. Forensic review found draft emails in which Smith implied such contacts. The significance is the intent, not the result: a Trump campaign adviser and a GOP donor went shopping for material they believed Russian intelligence might hold. ## See Also - [[Michael Flynn]] · [[Hillary Clinton]] · [[Mueller Investigation]] - [[Dirty Tricks]] · [[Richard Mellon Scaife]] — the 1990s anti-Clinton funding world - [[Jerome Corsi]] · [[Roger Stone]] — the other 2016 hunts for Clinton material