In May, a long time Republican activist named Peter Smith told The Wall Street Journal that during the Trump campaign he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers. Shortly after revealing his attempt to do so, he apparently
killed himself in a hotel room. And now the Journal reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible Trump campaign collision with Russia has focused on whether Flynn was working with Smith to get the emails from these Russian hackers, although there doesn't appear yet to be evidence that her
server was actually hacked. And today the Washington Post reports that President Trump's real estate company before he was president, was trying to do a deal for a development of a tower in Moscow while Trump was campaigning and just before the Republican primaries. Here to talk with us about these very interesting developments in the investigation into the Trump campaign.
His William Banks, director of the Institute for a National Security and counter Terrorism at Syracuse University College of Law, Bill, this is kind of a strange story, but we're back again with um former National Security Director Flynn at the center of this investigation, and what exactly are they looking at here. Well, it's true that that the Flynn dimensions of the investigation seemed to have more alarms than an octopus.
It it's this is a this is probably an effort by Peter Smith and now deceased operatives to make some kind of contact, meaningful contact with the Trump administration to get them interested in in the Clinton and d n C emails that he thought he could get. And Flynn was at least one of the persons that he allegedly contacted, and apparently, according to what he said to someone before he died, that Flynn was willing to work with him to make those emails available to the media and then
could damage the Clinton campaign. If that's true, of course, that's a that's a bombshell. We It's going to be hard to know since Smith is deceased. Uh, and we'll we'll see what Flynn himself is going to say about this. I don't believe he said anything that we have access to at this point. Bill, what's the law here? What what sort of conduct would potentially be a crime if,
if indeed Michael Flynn has done something. Yeah, So there are a couple of things I think that are primarily in interest one, of course, is general criminal conspiracies laws in the United States and in all fifty states that if Flynn was was conspiring with with Smith or anyone else, UH, towards for example, theft of material simple theft or computer crimes, computer theft, he would be criminally culpable there and and
more in the in the larger scheme of things. Of course, the Muller investigation from the beginning has been about potential collusion, and this would be additional evidence of potential collusion involving the campaign in particular, UH, a general Flynn bill. You know, the Washington Post reported about Trump's company trying to do a tower in Moscow. Um. The president uh, in the middle of the campaign was you know, after that had been quoted as saying, um, that he had zero dealings
with Russia. You've now got this stuff with Flynn. We we get these periodic things in the press about what's going on with the investigation. When you put them all together, how serious is this looking for the president right now? Well, it's still hard to tell about how serious it looks to the president himself. I think we're clearly up the chain of several of his advisers being implicated here of course Flynn and and Bannon and uh and the other
Smith who was an earlier engaged in the campaign. Whether it stands to the president is still very hard to say. He's you know, he's been pretty opaque about his his dealings there, and he's made a lot of denials. But the investigators aren't dogged here, and they're gonna work pretty hard. Uh. This is this is by no means finished and by no means a slipshot investigation. So we're hearing bits and pieces, but it will all come together here or not in
the two distant future. I think we bill specifically as to the term tower in Moscow, I'm curious as to what you make of it. Um, it feels a little bit like a political bombshell because the president been saying he didn't have any ties with Russia. But is there a significant legal implication here and not know that probably isn't unless there are some kind of quick procoel arrangement you know in the in the and what we think
of as in bribery. You know, if you if you build your hotel over here and will assist your campaign by providing on on your opposition, that would be another evidence, additional evidence of of pollusion and also of underhanded dealings and trying to win the election as a candidate. That there's no evidence to that effect so far as we know. Well, we'd like to. If you're building a hotel, that's all. You know. He's building a hotel and looking for favors.
Businesses do that all the time. Well, this is often the case with investigations. Uh, A lot remains to be seen. It's gonna be interesting to see what, if anything comes together here and how far up in the Trump administration, if there is any any findings of criminality, how far up it goes, and what the president's involvement was. But
at this point we still have to wait. Our thanks to Bill Banks, the director of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism at Syracuse University College of Law,