GOP operative who sought Clinton's emails from Russian hackers committed suicide?

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

A Republican donor and operative from Chicago's North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show.

In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.

Days earlier, the financier from suburban Lake Forest gave an interview to the Journal about his quest, and it published stories about his efforts beginning in late June. The Journal also reported it had seen emails written by Smith showing his team considered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then a top adviser to Republican Donald Trump's campaign, as an ally. Flynn briefly was President Trump's national security adviser and resigned after it was determined he had failed to disclose contacts with Russia.

At the time, the newspaper reported Smith's May 14 death came about 10 days after he granted the interview. Mystery shrouded how and where he had died, but the lead reporter on the stories said on a podcast he had no reason to believe the death was the result of foul play and that Smith likely had died of natural causes.

However, the Chicago Tribune obtained a Minnesota state death record filed in Olmsted County that says Smith committed suicide in a hotel near the Mayo Clinic at 1:17 p.m. on Sunday, May 14. He was found with a bag over his head with a source of helium attached. A medical examiner's report gives the same account, without specifying the time, and a report from Rochester police further details his suicide.

In the note recovered by police, Smith apologized to authorities and said that "NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER" was involved in his death. He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a "RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017" and timing related "TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-peter-smith-death-met-0713-20170713-story.html

Emphasis added.

Yup. If I was going to commit suicide by natural causes, this is exactly what I'd do, too. I'd murder myself with a plastic bag after writing a note "Hey, no one murdered me."

Okay, seriously, now. I don't want to be in the position of trying to defend a conspiracy theory. A series of stupid events could possibly explain this. However, the coincidence of stupid events would have to include Smith either trolling everyone or a different conspiracy, like getting paid off by Mike Pence to make this look like something.

How bizarre.

 

[repoman]

The left's Seth Rich.

 

[braces_for_impact]

A Republican donor and operative from Chicago's North Shore who said he had tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails from Russian hackers killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after talking to The Wall Street Journal about his efforts, public records show.

In a room at a Rochester hotel used almost exclusively by Mayo Clinic patients and relatives, Peter W. Smith, 81, left a carefully prepared file of documents, which includes a statement police called a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and a life insurance policy was expiring.

Days earlier, the financier from suburban Lake Forest gave an interview to the Journal about his quest, and it published stories about his efforts beginning in late June. The Journal also reported it had seen emails written by Smith showing his team considered retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then a top adviser to Republican Donald Trump's campaign, as an ally. Flynn briefly was President Trump's national security adviser and resigned after it was determined he had failed to disclose contacts with Russia.

At the time, the newspaper reported Smith's May 14 death came about 10 days after he granted the interview. Mystery shrouded how and where he had died, but the lead reporter on the stories said on a podcast he had no reason to believe the death was the result of foul play and that Smith likely had died of natural causes.

However, the Chicago Tribune obtained a Minnesota state death record filed in Olmsted County that says Smith committed suicide in a hotel near the Mayo Clinic at 1:17 p.m. on Sunday, May 14. He was found with a bag over his head with a source of helium attached. A medical examiner's report gives the same account, without specifying the time, and a report from Rochester police further details his suicide.

In the note recovered by police, Smith apologized to authorities and said that "NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER" was involved in his death. He wrote that he was taking his own life because of a "RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017" and timing related "TO LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-peter-smith-death-met-0713-20170713-story.html

Emphasis added.

Yup. If I was going to commit suicide by natural causes, this is exactly what I'd do, too. I'd murder myself with a plastic bag after writing a note "Hey, no one murdered me."

Okay, seriously, now. I don't want to be in the position of trying to defend a conspiracy theory. A series of stupid events could possibly explain this. However, the coincidence of stupid events would have to include Smith either trolling everyone or a different conspiracy, like getting paid off by Mike Pence to make this look like something.

How bizarre.

Helium. The last thing I want to hear is my own Mickey Mouse voice as I confront the void....

Said in a squeaky voice:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, ...

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/famous/death/

Sorry, I have a morbid sense of humor.

 

[blastula]

Another Clinton victim, just the latest Vince Foster.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Helium bag is pretty hard to use as a murder technique unless they were drugged first--and that would show up in an autopsy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Life insurance pays off for suicide?

CT and all, this would be perhaps one of the dumbest ways to hide a murder...

...any info on the whereabouts of Donald Trump Jr around that time?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Now?

Show

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

CT and all, this would be perhaps one of the dumbest ways to hide a murder...

It reminds me of the anthrax with the notes from Muslims that were deliberately spelled wrong and invoking stereotypes. That was kind of an agenda and also trolling.

 

[repoman]

just because some people look at things like this (or Vince Foster, Seth Rich) and get wrapped up does not mean that there have not been strange political murder happen in the US at all. Who knows, but getting your mind revved up does not help.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

 

[Treedbear]

Life insurance pays off for suicide? ...

I was wondering that too.
The key rules:

* The "suicide clause." Usually, this clause states that no death benefit will be paid if the insured commits suicide within two years of taking out a policy.

Whenever an insured person replaces an existing life insurance policy with a new one, the time clock for the suicide clause is set back to zero and starts over again.

There was something about his $5M policy about to expire(?).

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Wow. I didn't know that you get life insurance payouts for a suicide. Since I'm my wife's beneficiary, I guess it's time for a conversation about how much she really loves me.

 

[Deepak]

So I'm not particularly conspiratorially minded, but suicide by CO₂ poisoning seems particularly difficult to pull off - the autonomic nervous system has pretty strong reactions for that.

Wow. I didn't know that you get life insurance payouts for a suicide. Since I'm my wife's beneficiary, I guess it's time for a conversation about how much she really loves me.

Just keep making modifications to your own policy every 23 months if you want to live longer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Life insurance pays off for suicide?

My understanding is that the law requires no more than a two year exclusionary period. That's enough to avoid the problem of suicidal people buying life insurance. Beyond that suicide is normally either due to mental illness or at the end of life anyway (such as this case.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So I'm not particularly conspiratorially minded, but suicide by CO₂ poisoning seems particularly difficult to pull off - the autonomic nervous system has pretty strong reactions for that.

Huh? This was helium, not CO₂.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So I'm not particularly conspiratorially minded, but suicide by CO₂ poisoning seems particularly difficult to pull off - the autonomic nervous system has pretty strong reactions for that.

Wow. I didn't know that you get life insurance payouts for a suicide. Since I'm my wife's beneficiary, I guess it's time for a conversation about how much she really loves me.

Just keep making modifications to your own policy every 23 months if you want to live longer.

Helium works by saturating the body with helium, which makes a person 'light' enough to float. They float high enough in the sky until the air pressure is no longer heavy enough to hold them up (also helium slowly escapes from pores and exhaling). At this point, the person plummets to their death.

 

[Deepak]

So I'm not particularly conspiratorially minded, but suicide by CO₂ poisoning seems particularly difficult to pull off - the autonomic nervous system has pretty strong reactions for that.

Huh? This was helium, not CO₂.

Technical divers sometimes use hypoxic heliox mixes, to reduce the effects of oxygen toxicity at depth, in rebreather systems with CO₂ scrubbers. Indeed exhaled air still has about 95% of the original oxygen content. If you put a scrubber into that guy's bag he'd be fine for a long while.

Now, if you take the scrubber out of the rebreather system you're in for a bad time.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/diving/video/co2video.htm

Edit: derp - if the bag is larger than lung capacity you'd have a hypoxemic mixture pretty quickly. I guess I should stick to diving and not suicide xD

 

[RavenSky]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-peter-smith-death-met-0713-20170713-story.html

Emphasis added.

Yup. If I was going to commit suicide by natural causes, this is exactly what I'd do, too. I'd murder myself with a plastic bag after writing a note "Hey, no one murdered me."

Okay, seriously, now. I don't want to be in the position of trying to defend a conspiracy theory. A series of stupid events could possibly explain this. However, the coincidence of stupid events would have to include Smith either trolling everyone or a different conspiracy, like getting paid off by Mike Pence to make this look like something.

How bizarre.

Helium. The last thing I want to hear is my own Mickey Mouse voice as I confront the void....

Said in a squeaky voice:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, ...

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/famous/death/

Sorry, I have a morbid sense of humor.

and so do I. That made me laugh out loud

 

[braces_for_impact]

Helium. The last thing I want to hear is my own Mickey Mouse voice as I confront the void....

Said in a squeaky voice:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, ...

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/famous/death/

Sorry, I have a morbid sense of humor.

and so do I. That made me laugh out loud

I was hoping someone else would get it...

 

[Elixir]

Helium works by saturating the body with helium, which makes a person 'light' enough to float. They float high enough in the sky until the air pressure is no longer heavy enough to hold them up (also helium slowly escapes from pores and exhaling). At this point, the person plummets to their death.

Usually, they reach a certain altitude and when the external pressure drops enough, they simply explode. Occasionally tiny bits of them reach the ground, but most burn up on re-entry.