It's all speculation of course, but I've been wondering/hypothesizing along these lines for quite some time. The Hashimi plea deal was convenient because the case was never in court and therefore details never had to be released, so the entire 'gang argument' justification could be a fabrication. Or not. I'm just not buying 1st degree murder plead down to manslaughter because Hashimi was high and on cough syrup. Seems like a ridiculous justification to me, how many murders are committed by people under mind altering substances that go from 1st degree to manslaughter? I'd think 2nd degree would be more appropriate there, no?
If Smith's phone was indeed stolen then that is strongly suggests that the video was a motivating factor in his murder.
The phone calls on the date of Smith's murder may be suspect, but Ford and Lisi called each other all the time anyway, could just be random mid-day calls. Does anyone know if the time of the calls has been revealed? If the calls all took place just before and just after Smith was shot, then that would certainly look circumstantially bad for the mayor.
My gut feeling is that the murder had something to do with Ford in the sense that someone wanted to get their hands on the video, but that it wasn't directly related to Ford. In other words, I don't really think that he or his goon squad called in a hit. But I think that it indirectly relates to Ford in the sense that it was tied to the video in some way.