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The Week that Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Alex Potcovaru
Saturday, July 1, 2017, 7:30 AM

On Thursday evening, Shane Harris of the Wall Street Journal reported that longtime Republican operative Peter W. Smith reached out to several hacker groups, including two Russian groups, in an attempt to locate emails allegedly stolen from Hillary Clinton's private email server.

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On Thursday evening, Shane Harris of the Wall Street Journal reported that longtime Republican operative Peter W. Smith reached out to several hacker groups, including two Russian groups, in an attempt to locate emails allegedly stolen from Hillary Clinton's private email server. Smith reportedly presented himself as having contact about the search with now-former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, then a senior adviser to Trump's campaign. In a follow-up story, Harris and his co-authors wrote that Smith used the names of top Trump officials including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway in a recruitment document for the effort.


In response to the initial story, Benjamin Wittes posted a special edition of the Lawfare Podcast featuring an interview with Harris about the story and its implications for possible Russian collusion:




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Alexander J. Potcovaru is a former National Security Intern at the Brookings Institution. A senior in the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, he studies International Politics with an International Security concentration. He is particularly interested in the interaction of law, security, and religion.

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