Peter W. Smith, 81, a former private equity executive and longtime political operative, killed himself in a Minnesota hotel room days after telling his story to a reporter from WSJ, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Smith left a carefully prepared file of documents, including a statement police described as a suicide note in which he said he was in ill health and that a life insurance policy was expiring.

Smith's death, which occurred on May 14, 10 days before the story was published, was one of the most bizarre developments in a hard-to-follow WSJ story that tried (and in our estimation, failed) to implicate former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in a sinister plot to enlist the help of some Russians to hack the 2016 election...thus 'proving' collusion.