EXCLUSIVE: Doubt Surfaces About ‘Suicide’ Claim of Clinton Investigator

A Wall Street analyst who spoke to Peter Smith the day before he reportedly committed suicide told the Daily Caller News Foundation there were no indications the Chicago businessman and anti-Clinton political investigator was about to take his life.

“He may have been a fantastic actor but I certainly didn’t leave that phone call saying, ‘oh shit, the guy’s at the end of his rope,’” Charles Ortel, a Wall Street investment banker and market analyst, told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group.

“This does not seem like a settled story. It made perfect sense to me he might have died of natural causes, but little chance he would have killed himself,” Ortel said.

Ortel and Smith shared a common interest in the Clintons. Ortel has dug deeply into the financial operations of the Clinton Foundation. He first came to public attention in 2007 by exposing questionable accounting practices at General Electric.


“We had countless discussions,” Ortel recalled of his relationship with Smith. “He was using his unique decades of experience in politics to offer me advice how to expose the Clinton Foundation.”

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that the Minnesota death record states Smith committed suicide in a hotel room May 14.

The investigator’s death came only 10 days after a Wall Street Journal interview by investigative reporter Shane Harris, who focused on Smith’s attempts to...

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