A Republican opposition researcher hunted for copies of missing emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server — which he believed had been hacked — before the 2016 election and implied to associates he was working with then Trump adviser Michael Flynn, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal said that GOP operative Peter W. Smith was scouring the world of hackers, including Russians, to get the Clinton emails, which the former Democratic presidential candidate said were deleted because they were personal.

Smith considered Flynn — who was at the time an advisor to President Trump’s campaign — an ally in his search, according to emails written by Smith and obtained by the Journal.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” Eric York, an Atlanta computer-security expert, told the paper.

The Journal cautioned that it was unclear what role Flynn might have played in Smith’s email hack hunt — which turned up nothing. Flynn did not respond to the paper’s requests for comment

And Smith —who died at age 81 shortly after talking to the Journal — told the paper he knew Flynn, but he never said Flynn was involved.

The Journal said that, according to sources, that federal investigators probing Russian interference in the election have looked at intelligence reports showing Russian hackers talked about how to get the deleted Clinton emails and hand them over to Flynn though a third party.

Flynn was fired earlier this year as Trump’s National Security Advisor for not coming clean to administration officials about his talks with Russia’s ambassador to the US.

In his interview with the Journal, Smith said his group found groups of hackers — including two that were Russian — claiming to have missing Clinton emails.

He said he couldn’t be sure the emails were legitimate, however, and told the sources to “give them to WikiLeaks,” which has never published such emails.