The interesting story about this Morning Joe conversation is what wasn't said.

They report what Peter Smith allegedly told Matt Tait when he was trying to recruit Tait to work with him to get Hillary Clinton's deleted emails from Russian hackers.

And they also report that Smith seems to be good friends with Mike Flynn and his son.

They discuss whether Smith's actions were independent of the Trump campaign, citing his mention of working with Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Sam Clovis, and seem to write this whole story off as some kind of braggadocio.

If Peter Smith had no political history at all, I could understand why they might think that. But this guy's dirty tricks background goes deep. Guess who he worked with closely?

George Conway -- Kellyanne Conway's husband.

George Conway was one of the "elves" (Ann Coulter was another one) who was working on the Paula Jones lawsuit against Bill Clinton. Guess who paid off some Arkansas state troopers to tell salacious tales about Clinton? Guess who funded that lawsuit and the attempts to push it into the mainstream media?

Peter Smith.

In a hack of the Illinois Republican party by Russian intelligence, guess whose emails turned up? Peter Smith.

Smith's emails discussed conversations he had with Matthew Boyle, Washington political editor for Breitbart News Network, as well as a link to a Breitbart story headlined, "Meet Peter Roskam, Dark Horse Candidate for Speaker," which Smith sought to tell Porter was "as good as it can get."

Seems like he might know Steve Bannon, too.

Smith was a major donor to GoPAC, Newt Gingrich's PAC, and a big supporter of Newt.

So we can assume that Smith had at least some credibility in the right-wing political world, and a history of results.

It would be nice if the mainstream media told their viewers.