BREAKING: Two days ago I said we'd soon hear much more about Joe Schmitz. I didn't know it'd be *this* soon. This is a strange story we'll eventually get more details on. There's clearly much more to this—and it may yet involve Peter Smith and Erik Prince. thehill.com/homenews/admin…
2/ What's obvious from this story is that Schmitz (a Trump NatSec advisor) must've been part of a covert Team Trump effort to use the dark web to locate stolen materials that could harm Clinton in the election and ensure Comey was forced to reopen his investigation of her emails.
3/ We know that Peter Smith (just before he killed himself) told a reporter that he had been working with Michael Flynn and other significant Trump aides on a similar dark-web hunt.
Hard to believe he wasn't coordinating with Schmitz, who, like Flynn, was a Trump NatSec adviser.
Hard to believe he wasn't coordinating with Schmitz, who, like Flynn, was a Trump NatSec adviser.
4/ Schmitz went to Budapest, the European HQ of the FSB, at the same time he was trying to use the dark web to find stolen goods he would have known from reports the FSB was likely associated with compiling. We don't know who he met with there, besides the Hungarian ambassador.
5/ In fact, it seems almost everyone on Trump's NatSec team met with the Hungarian ambassador, which is interesting because the ambassador's boss (Orban) is a friend of Putin. Sessions and Page also both met with him. Possibly Gordon and Prince too (both were in Hungary in 2016).
6/ Schmitz is infamous for crediting and working with individuals later found to have told lies about the Clintons, so it's no surprise he had a "client" who was trying to receive stolen property through the dark web with an eye toward influencing the 2016 presidential election.
7/ What's odd is Schmitz's boss—Trump—had put out a public call for stolen Clinton materials to be located and made public. Are we now to believe he didn't know one of his national security advisers was engaged in that exact effort at the exact time he made that exact request?
8/ What's also striking is that it seems likely Schmitz was trying to, had he actually found such material, deliver it into the hands of the same sort of pro-Trump elements who later would leak false intel about Clinton in October to force Jim Comey to reopen the Clinton probe.
9/ The picture is getting very clear now: as soon as the Trump campaign discovered the Russians had been committing crimes (and waging cyberwar) to get Clinton docs, the entire campaign put all its resources into contacting the Russians and tracking down those stolen materials.
10/ And this Trump campaign effort began many months after Papadopoulos had (it appears) told Trump's NatSec team that the Russians not only supported Trump, but had stolen Clinton materials and wanted to find a way to meet with and help Trump/his team. So: illegal coordination.
11/ And don't forget that Trump's speech promising (VIP speech attendee) Russian ambassador Kisyak a "good deal" on sanctions came after Trump's campaign *knew* that the Russians had stolen Clinton emails. In fact, one of the writers of the speech was the one the Russians told.
