Political involvement

He was national chairman of the College Young Republicans. He was a board member and officer of the Atlantic Council of the United States and was also active with The Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Brookings Institution. He was a contributor and fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, GOPAC, and to individual candidates.^[4] Smith was a major donor to Newt Gingrich's GOPAC, giving over $100,000 from 1989 to 1995—a sum which made him one of GOPAC's top 20 donors.^[5]

In December 1993, two Arkansas state troopers publicly claimed that they and other troopers had been used to facilitate and conceal multiple extra-marital affairs of then-Governor Bill Clinton. The stories were published in an article by then-conservative author David Brock in the American Spectator and also in a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times.^[6][7] Smith had arranged for the troopers to meet Brock.^[8] In February 1994 Smith started a "Troopergate Whistle Blower Fund" to provide support for the troopers and pay their attorney fees; the fund ultimately raised about $40,000. Altogether Smith said he spent about $80,000 on the case, including a $5,000 payment to Brock. Smith described his donations as an independent effort to encourage anti-Clinton stories in the mainstream press.^[8]

Several emails sent by Smith to the Illinois Republican Party turned up among those hacked from party computers and posted on DCLeaks, which U.S. intelligence officials believe to be an outlet for the foreign military intelligence agency of Russia, GRU. The emails were about a 2015 congressional election.^[9]

In May 2017 Smith told Shane Harris of the Wall Street Journal that he had been actively involved, during the 2016 presidential election campaign, trying to obtain emails he believed had been deleted from Hillary Clinton's computer server.^[10][11] Smith stated, "We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government" and told various internet groups to give any emails to Wikileaks.^[10][12] To act as a vehicle for his efforts, Smith established the Delaware-based firm KLS Research LLC on September 2, 2016, and opened a bank account for KLS at Northern Trust where he also had a personal account.^[13][14] For advice on obtaining Clinton's emails and with support from Smith's assistant Jonathan Safron, Smith and his associate John Szobocsan contacted several experts in cyber security including Eric York, Matt Tait, the consulting firm Flynn Intel Group associated with Michael G. Flynn and his father Michael Flynn with whom Smith had established a business together in November 2015 immediately after Flynn retired from the Army.^{[12][14][15][16]} Smith reached out to Guccifer 2.0 and Charles Johnson suggested that Smith contact Andrew Auernheimer alias Weev.^[17]

According to the Mueller Report, Trump campaign advisor Mike Flynn contacted Smith shortly after July 27, 2016, when Trump had publicly invited "Russia" to find the missing emails, and asked Smith to look for them.^[18] In that quest Smith contacted several known hacker groups, including some Russian groups.^[19] He was shown some information but was not convinced it was genuine, and suggested the hackers give it to WikiLeaks instead.^[10] As part of this effort, Smith donated $150,000 to "the Washington Scholarship Fund for the Russian students", including $100,000 of solicited money and $50,000 from his personal funds.^[20]

Smith was close to Sam Clovis.^[17] He maintained a blog called Peter W. Smith.^[21]