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A former GCHQ specialist says he was recruited by a Republican Party researcher to help verify emailsapparently hacked from Hillary Clintons private server by Russia.

The claims come amid allegations of collusion between Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russian intelligence last summer.

Matt Taitsaid he was approached around the time WikiLeaks published 20,000 hacked Democratic National Committee emails and Mr Trump publicly called for Russiato obtain Ms Clinton's private server emails.

Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro called for the House Intelligence Committee to hear from Matt Tait as soon as possible on Saturday.

In a post published on theLawfare national security blog, Mr Tait describes a series of phone calls with political operative PeterSmith, and later with one of his associates John Szobocsan, from July to mid-September 2016.

Mr Smith, a seasoned opposition researcher claiming to work with the Republican Party, said he was searching for the 33,000 emails Ms Clinton deleted from her private server used for official business while secretary of state.

He asked for Mr Taits help in verifying the authenticity of emails obtained via the "dark web".Mr Smith said he wanted to make the emails public before the election in November, and expressed indifference at Russias potential role in their release, according to Mr Tait.

The American allegedly discussed his conviction that Clintons private email server had been hacked in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election.

"They had a reckless lack of interest in whether the emails came from a Russian cut-out, Mr Tait says in the blogpost.

Mr Smith appears to have known enough details about the Republican campaign to suggest he was closely tied to them.

In a recruitment document from September 2016, he listed officials including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and then foreign policy adviser Mike Flynn as being associated with his research company. Mr Bannon has denied meeting with Mr Smith.

Mr Smith died just over a month ago at age 81, just ten days after speaking to the Wall Street Journal about his search for Clinton's emails.

He had a long history of tarnishing opponents of the Republican party and had in the past tried to find a woman to claim Hillary Clinton had an illegitimate child.

Mr Tait, who now runs a UK-based security consultancy, believes he was approached because he had publicly studied Hillary Clintons emails as well as the hack of Democratic National Congress emails.

The former information security specialist wrote: "My suspicion then and now was that Hillary Clintons email server was likely never breached by Russia, and moreover that if Russia had a copy of Clintons emails, they would not waste them in the run-up to an election she was likely to win."

He refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement suggested by Mr Smith towards the end of their contact.

Mr Tait admits that he never actually saw the emails described by Mr Smith, and said the late researcher could just have been talking a very good game.

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Former GCHQ specialist was asked by Republican researcher to verify Hillary Clinton emails hacked by Russia - The Independent

The Republican operative claimed to have been offered hacked Hillary Clinton emails, likely from a Russian source, says Tait. Photograph: MediaPunch/REX/Shutterstock

A former British government intelligence official has said he was approached last summer by a veteran Republican operative to help verify hacked Hillary Clinton emails offered by a mysterious and most likely Russian source.

The incident, recounted by Matt Tait, who was a information security specialist for GCHQ and now runs a private internet security consultancy in the UK, may cast new light on one of the pathways the Russians used to influence the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trumps favour.

Taits account, published on the Lawfare national security blog, demonstrates a willingness to collude with the Russians on the part of the Republican operative, Peter Smith, who had a long history of hunting down damaging material about the Clinton family on behalf of the GOP leadership. It also points towards possible collusion by Trump aides.

According to Tait, Smith claimed to be working with Trumps then foreign policy adviser, Michael Flynn, and showed documentation suggesting he was also associated with close Trump aides including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.

They have denied having had contact with Smith, who died in May at the age of 81, about 10 days after talking to the Wall Street Journal about his pursuit of the emails. Smith told the paper he had operated independently of the Trump campaign.

In his account, Tait writes that he thought Smith had approached him because of his analysis of Democratic National Commitee (DNC) emails stolen by suspected Russian hackers and then published online.

Smith first contacted Tait out of the blue in late July, he wrote, around the time 20,000 hacked DNC emails were published by WikiLeaks and Trump publicly called for Russia to look for emails from the private server used by Clinton when she was secretary of state.

Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, the Republican candidate said at a press conference in Florida on 27 July 2016.

Smith implied that he was a well-connected Republican political operative, Tait writes. Yet Smith had not contacted me about the DNC hack, but rather about his conviction that Clintons private email server had been hacked in his view almost certainly both by the Russian government and likely by multiple other hackers too and his desire to ensure that the fruits of those hacks were exposed prior to the election.

Over the course of a long phone call, he mentioned that he had been contacted by someone on the Dark Web who claimed to have a copy of emails from Secretary Clintons private server, and this was why he had contacted me; he wanted me to help validate whether or not the emails were genuine.

Tait writes that he warned Smith about serious implications if the emails were being offered by Russian intelligence as part of a wider campaign to disrupt the election.

Smith, however, didnt seem to care, he writes. From his perspective it didnt matter who had taken the emails, or their motives for doing so.

Smith claimed to be closely connected to Flynn and his son, Tait writes, and seemed to be well versed in inner goings on and rivalries within the Trump campaign.

Tait also writes that it is certainly possible that [Smith] was a big name-dropper and never really represented anyone other than himself, but adds: If thats the case, Smith talked a very good game.

In September, Tait writes, Smith sent him a cover page for opposition research on Clinton that named Flynn, Bannon, Conway under the title: Trump Campaign (in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure).

Tait ended his contact with Smith the same month, he writes, when Smith asked him to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Tait remains unsure if the material Smith received was genuine and from Russian intelligence or whether Smith was being scammed.

However, the Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying that investigators looking into Trump links with Moscow had examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs Clintons server and then transmit them to Mr Flynn via an intermediary.

Flynn resigned as Trumps national security adviser in February, after it emerged he had not disclosed the extent of his conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. His role in Trump camp links with the Kremlin is part of a much broader investigation being run by special counsel Robert Mueller.

His lawyer said in March: General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it.

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Cyber expert says GOP operative wanted to expose hacked Clinton emails - The Guardian

(WASHINGTON) Russian hackers discussed during the 2016 presidential campaign whether they could obtain emails pilfered from Hillary Clinton and ultimately get them to an adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, according to a report published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal said investigators probing Russian meddling in the election have examined intelligence agency reports about how hackers wanted to get emails from Clinton's server to an intermediary and then to Mike Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and senior adviser to Trump who went on to serve briefly as his national security adviser. The newspaper also references a Republican operative who was convinced emails missing from Clinton's server were in the hands of Russian hackers, and who implied in conversations that he was working with Flynn.

The newspaper said it was not clear whether Flynn played any role in the quest of the operative, Peter W. Smith, who died shortly after speaking with the newspaper. The Journal said Flynn did not respond to requests, the White House declined comment, and the campaign said Smith never worked for it and that any such action undertaken by Flynn, if true, was not on its behalf.

Congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating Russian influence in the election and potential coordination with the Trump campaign. Russia has been blamed for pilfering emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and of the DNC.

But the newspaper said Smith and the hackers were focused on some 33,000 emails that Clinton said had been deleted and that Smith believed, with no proof, were acquired by hackers. Officials have said there is no evidence Clinton's private email server was hacked.

Smith told the newspaper that he was unsure of the authenticity of emails hackers eventually did send to him and he told them to pass them to WikiLeaks, the same outfit that published the emails taken from Podesta and the committee.

"We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government," Smith told the newspaper. He died on May 14 at 81, about less than two weeks after being interviewed.

In emails Smith sent to potential recruits for his project, and which the newspaper reviewed, he referenced Flynn and Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, several times.

Mike Flynn was fired after less than a month because of revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

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Russian Hackers Discussed Sending Hillary Clinton's Emails to Trump Adviser - TIME

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Donald Trump nominated Nikki Haley as the administrations ambassador to the United Nations. She seems to have mistaken the signal. She thinks shes the Nikki Haley ambassador to the U.N. Or maybe Hillary Clintons.

Trump has repeatedly reminded Americans that he is the president of the United States, not president of the World. His constitutional duty is exclusively to defend the American people against actual or imminent aggression with invincible self-defense, not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. During the campaign, he embraced the sentiments of Sen. Henry Clays rebuff of Hungarys plea for United States military intervention to protect against the Russian Bear:

Far better is it for ourselves, for Hungary, and for the cause of liberty, that, adhering to our wise, pacific system, and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we should keep our lamp burning brightly on this western shore as a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction amid the ruins of the fallen or failing republics in Europe.

Nikki Haley didnt get the message. During a February meeting of the U.N. Security Council, she said, our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, however, nominee Trump blocked a proposal for economic warfare against Russia to retaliate for its annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine.

Mrs. Haley might as well have been Hillary Clintons U.N. ambassador. Mrs. Clinton also championed gladiatorial opposition towards Russia during her campaign. We have to do more to get back to talking about how we try to confine, contain, deter Russian aggression in Europe and beyond. Candidate Clinton insisted that the U.S. shouldsend more fundingto Kiev and provide new equipment and training for the Ukrainians in retaliation for the Russian annexation of Crimea.

As regards humanitarian war, Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Clinton are two peas in a pod. Last April, Ambassador Haley at the U.N. Security Council threatened a United States humanitarian war against Syria to diminish the grisliness of civilian killings there. When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action. For the sake of the victims, I hope the rest of the council is finally willing to do the same.

Mrs. Haleys words echoed Hillary Clinton. As then-Secretary of State in 2011, Mrs. Clinton said that humanitarian concerns justified a war to overthrow Libyas Muammar Gaddafi. It predictably turned Libya into a wilderness and a mecca for terrorists, but Mrs. Clinton called it peace and smart power at its best. In 2013, Mrs. Clinton supported President Barack Obamas exhortation to Congress to authorize war against Syrian President Bashir-al Assad under a humanitarian banner.

In contrast to Mrs. Haley and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has pledged to withdraw from our trillion-dollar military capers in the Middle East that have only compounded horrifying carnage and needlessly forced courageous American soldiers to give or risk that last full measure of devotion to conceal amateurish political miscalculations:

[W]hat weve done in the Middle East, weve spent $4 trillion and were far worse than when the first gunshot that was fired and weve got to at some point get out of there, because we have to rebuild our country.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations last March, Ambassador Haley spoke like a mouthpiece of Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Haley sermonized that the United States would work tirelessly to purge the planet of immorality. In a homily worthy of John Knox, she gave failing grades to several nations deficient in human rights: The United States is the moral conscience of the world. We will not walk away from this role, but we will insist that our participation in the UN honor and reflect this role. For me, human rights are at the heart of the mission of the United Nations. That simply parroted what Mrs. Clinton had preached during her bumbling presidential campaign. Part of what makes America an exceptional nation is that we are also an indispensable nation. In fact, we are the indispensable nation. People all over the world look to us and follow our lead.

During his visit to Saudi Arabia last May, President Trump repudiated the Haley-Clinton White Mans Burden vision of the United States. We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. When will Ambassador Haley awaken from her intellectual stupor and remember that Mr. Trump, not Hillary Clinton, won the 2016 presidential election?

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Nikki Haley channels Hillary Clinton - Washington Times

Book Bites Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for SeriousFun

The busier you get, the harder it can be to find time to read. We bet no one knows this more than Hillary Clinton, which is why we were thrilled when Clinton listed all the books shes been reading since November.

Though were positive Hillary would rather be running the country right now, the former democratic presidential nominee has enjoyed herself the last few months.After this election, one of the things that helped me most, aside from long walks in the woods and the occasional glass of chardonnay, was once again going back to the familiar experience of losing myself in books, she said during her speech at the American Library Association.

Thats a beautiful feeling, and one we should take more time to experience ourselves. Even post-election, were no doubt less busy than Hillary Clinton.

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Thanks, Hil!

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Hillary Clinton gave us our summer reading list - HelloGiggles