On 29 JUN 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that Smith, a long time Republican opposition researcher contacted international computer hacking networks to obtain, what he believed, were emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's private server.
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Smith did obtain, what were possibly stolen emails, but he was unable to verify their authenticity, and urged the hackers to instead provide these emails to Wikileaks.
Smith admittedly know that these hackers may be part of the Russian government.
Smith's widow still owns this property.